PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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The following report deals with the work under four main heads: (1) General Administration; (2) Triangulation and Levelling; (3) Topographical Surveys; (4) Revenue, Block, Application and Cadastral Surveys, with short notes on the questions of (5) Map reproduction and (6) Office accommodation.
General Administration. In any criticisms on the work of the Ceylon Survey it should be clearly borne in mind that the Department is charged with duties of a more extended and comprehensive nature than is the case in most other countries. Thus beyond the ordinary survey work, as the term is generally understood, it also undertakes the task of executing special surveys of an engineering character for It is placed in charge new roads, railways, water-supply schemes and flood outlets. of all the meteorological work in the island. The Surveyor-General is the Registrar of Patents, and upon him, assisted by one of his Superintendents, falls the labour of examining and reporting upon all applications for patents in the Colony, a work which grows steadily from year to year in consonance with the natural growth of industrial activity in the country. The Department carries out all the revenue, or large- scale, surveys required for land administration purposes, work which in India, for example, is done chiefly by the provincial organizations, and such surveys further include enquiries into the ownership of the plots and the compilation of a "Tenement list" for each village. In any comparison of the cost of survey work in Ceylon with that of nominally similar work in other countries, these facts must be kept in view.
The staff of the Survey Department, as authorised in the Estimates for the current year, stands as follows:-
1 Surveyor-General.
1 Assistant Surveyor-General.
9 Superintendents of Surveys.
10 Assistant Superintendents of Surveys.
31 Grade Surveyors (in four classes).
115 Supernumerary and Temporary Surveyors.
Clerks, draughtsmen, instrument repairers, &c.
There are two methods of recruiting new members of the staff:
(a) For appointments to the rank of temporary surveyor from youths, generally native, who have gone through a year's course at the Colombo Technical College and passed a qualifying examination;
(b) For appointments to the rank of Assistant Superintendent by the selection of duly-qualified candidates, in England, by the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
For promotion from the rank of supernumerary to that of 3rd grade a "Junior examination has to be passed, and to qualify for promotion from grade surveyor to assistant superintendent there is a "Senior" examination. Otherwise promotion up to the first class of grade surveyor is by seniority, combined with the power to retard or accelerate the steps in accordance with the professional proficiency of the individual. Above the rank of surveyor promotion is intended to be by merit and personal qualifications only, though naturally the order of seniority will tend to remain unimpaired except in cases of grave falling off in efficiency.
. In criticising this system of recruitment and promotion it may, in the first place, be observed that the rule insisting upon all junior members of the Survey staff passing through the Technical College has only just been introduced by the In the second Surveyor-General. It appears to be an altogether admirable one. place it must be noted, with regret but none the less with emphasis, that the native of Ceylon, while often making a quite excellent surveyor, is only in rare cases qualified for promotion to the administrative ranks of the Department. It should therefore be somewhat exceptional for a grade surveyor to be promoted to the rank of assistant superintendent. The latter rank is in many ways the most important one in the Department, as from it are furnished the actual working heads of the survey parties in the field, upon whom depend, in no small measure, both the rapidity and economy of the field work and the reliability of the resulting plan or map.
In connection with the question of the promotion of native members of the staff it must be remembered that there are three different races concerned, Sinhalese, Tainils and Burghers, or men of mixed Dutch descent. Now, while any of these are willing to work under a British superintendent, a Sinhalese will seldom work
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well under a Tamil, or vice versa, while a Burgher will not work harmoniously under : either. So that unless the survey parties are racially selected, a course quite impracticable, no native superintendent could, in general, get any approach to a fair season's work out of a party. It should therefore be clearly understood that the senior examination is only a qualifying one, and that there is no claim to promo- tion from grade surveyor to assistant superintendent. In some cases in the past such promotions have been made in face of the deliberately-expressed opinion of Such the Surveyor-General that the men were not fitted for the higher rank. procedure is not conducive to the efficiency of the survey, nor would it appear to be ultimately advantageous to the interests of the Colony as a whole.
Before leaving the question of promotion from the lower ranks there are two points that may be adverted to, firstly, the unwholesome tendency on the part of the staff to consider that they have the right to memoralise the Governor whenever they are checked for any dereliction of duty or do not get promoted as quickly as they consider their merits warrant. Thus in a recent case a surveyor, guilty of grave carelessness in his work, was informed by the Surveyor-General that he would not be recommended for an annual increment of pay in the current year, to which he immediately replied that he intended to appeal to the Governor. Secondly, there is great difficulty in getting rid of a member of the staff who has been guilty of even serious misconduct. Thus it took five months to discharge a supernumerary surveyor who had been found extensively" fudging" his work. As a general rule undesirable members of the survey would be discharged while in the rank of temporary surveyors, who, being on daily rates of pay can be paid off at any time, but unless there are weighty administrative reasons against it the Surveyor-General should be empowered to dismiss, on the spot, any man, under the rank of grade surveyor, detected in actual cheating or other dishonest conduct. The discharged man in such a case could, of course, memorialise the Governor if he wished to, but the fact that dishonesty leads to immediate dismissal would have a most salutary effect upon the discipline of the whole service.
Any supernumerary surveyor reported by the Surveyor-General as not likely to become an efficient member of the Survey staff should also be discharged without question. No memorial should be received in such a case. For convenience the names of such men might be brought forward annually, say, on the 1st January in each year.
In Sir T. Holdich's report a recommendation was made, since acted upon, to reduce the number of assistant superintendents, finally extinguishing the rank altogether. In view of the greatly increased responsibilities of the Survey Depart- ment a reversal of this policy is now imperative. The assumption made that the Superintendents of Survey are able to perform duties of officers in charge of parties in the field no longer holds good. Apart from the facts that owing to the Waste Lands Ordinance and other causes the necessity for surveys in the island has become much more urgent and the staff of the Department is nearly double what was con- templated by Sir T. Holdich in 1897, the abolition of the assistant superintendents is not practicable, and would, in fact, almost paralyse the work of the whole Depart- ment. The superintendents, in the provinces, are fully occupied in the general control of all the revenue survey work and in dealing with the many complex ques- tions that arise in connection with land administration. They are not available for the direct working supervision of the field parties. Further, if this rank is abolished the question at once arises as to how the higher posts of the Department can be filled. It would not be possible to appoint new men, with no knowledge of the country, Superintendents of Surveys, officers who come into close touch with other Government officials, and must have considerable experience of the methods of work and a close acquaintance with local conditions. The rank of assistant superintendent, at a salary of £300-£350, is the normal one for the introduction of new blood" into the service; if allowed to lapse, the Department will ultimately find itself without any men properly qualified for promotion to the upper adminis- trative grades. In addition to the duties of officers in charge of parties, men of this rank are required for refined fundamental work, where a high degree of exactitude is demanded, such as primary levelling and secondary triangulation for topographical and cadastral surveys, work in general beyond the capacity of the grade surveyors. Taking all these points into consideration a substantial increase in the number of assistant superintendents is strongly recommended. The normal size of a survey party may be taken as ten men, so that the establishment of assistant
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