494
weather of the approaching hot season, and the Department is so short-handed that it would hardly be possible to replace a single official on the technical staff in case of illness. Moreover, as His Excellency the Governor is aware, many important works are kept back from the same cause, and I regret to add that I find it impossible to exercise the amount of supervision which is, in my opinion, necessary over some of the works now in progress.
I have &c.
(Signed) S. Brown,
Surveyor General.
P.S. I would again most respectfully urge upon the Government the desirability of fixing such rates of salary for the Assistant Surveyor General and the Executive Engineers as would induce men of good professional and social standing not merely to enter but to remain in the Government Service. I refer to this matter because the rate proposed for the Executive Engineer referred to in the Colonial Office Despatch is hardly higher than the salaries which have hitherto prevailed in the Department. Now it is a simple matter of fact that the rates which have hitherto been paid have proved insufficient, with hardly an exception, to induce qualified engineers to remain in the Government Service after