COPY.
ENCLOSURE /
638
C.C.
10023
21st. February, 1901, WAY OF
1.
This report treats of the progress of the Cadastral Survey up to the 15th. February, 1901, compared with the area surveyed up to the same date last year.
2.
But there was a large increase after this period last year, when all the Surveyors were at work in the Country around Pingshan, owing to very favourable circumstances which do not prevail at the present time. These favourable cir- cumstances were the (comparatively) very large sized fields into which the cultivated areas in those open Districts was divided. Owing to this the Surveyors were able to complete larger out- turns every month. The country which is now being surveyed is broken, the fields are much smaller, and these difficulties will increase somewhat as the Cadastral Survey enters further into the hilly tract of country that remains to be dealt with.
3.
The area surveyed Cadastrally up to the 15th. February; amounts to.
The area surveyed last year during the same period amounted to
3,600 acres
5,000 acres
It will be seen that the area completed during the present year amounts to 3/5, of that completed in the same period last year.
4.
This deficiency is chiefly due to the Survey. -ors working with the Demarcators. Both the Survey and Rent Roll operations being carried on at one and the same time. Some pro- portion of this deficiency must also be attributed to the increase of scale, and to the fact that under present conditions, the Field Surveyors are on fixed salaries. The precise shares of the decrease in the outtura this year, as compared with last year, cannot be exactly apportioned to each of the causes mentioned, because there have been, apart from these, other hindrances to continuous work, which make it very difficult to say with any degree of certainty whether the progress made up to the 15th. February is that which might have been expected; or whether, now that the Surveyors have settled down to their work, it may not be found that they will make better progress. I allude to the origi- nal orders that holdings alone should be surveyed; then that individual fields should also be mapped with the holdings. The change of scale to 32 inches when the work was in progress on the 16" 1 mile Scale is also accountable to some degree for the deficiency in the outturn.
5
But the chief causes may be said to be the two operations of the Rent Roll and Survey work which are being
performed