Annexe K.
REPORT ON LAND SURVEY WORK
FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31ST MARCH, 1911.
1. Organization.-The Land Survey Office, which includes a staff of surveyors under the direction of an officer designated the Principal Land Surveyor, forms a branch of the Public Works Department. Its principal function in the past has been the survey of leased areas, which were generally of small extent, but the acquisition of some 350 square miles of territory in 1898 and extensive developments in the Colony generally have necessitated an extension of its operations.
The Principal Land Surveyor, in addition to supervising the usual survey work necessary in a rapidly developing Colony, is the executive officer for dealing with all matters relating to Crown Lands, the whole of which are under the charge of the Director of Public Works. He submits reports on all applications for land, conducts all sales of areas to be let on long leases, prepares permits for temporary occupation of land and licences for temporary piers, and attends to the preparation of lease plans for lots of land, quarries, permanent piers, etc., and to the keeping of the numerous records.
The work performed by the surveyors is of very varied character as will be gathered from the particulars given later in this report.
Hitherto each surveyor had been responsible for co-ordinating his own traverses, but, as the work, which is in great measure of a mechanical nature, took up most of the surveyors' time, it was decided to engage two Chinese Computers who commenced their duties on 1st January and 1st February, 1911, respectively. The bearings and distances of all traverse lines are given to these computers, the surveyor applying a check on the result returned to him by adding it to the value of his first known station and verifying it with the value of his closing point. The surveyors plot their own work.
Two Land Bailiffs, whose time is wholly occupied in preventing illegal squatting and encroachments upon Crown Land, which are very common offences among the Chinese population, are attached to the office.
Two Chinese Clerks and 4 Tracers are employed in carrying on the purely clerical work.