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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O.

.885

18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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occupiers are compelled to register and support their titles; they will, by mere lapse of time, acquire good claims of right to land which should be Government property. Large areas of valuable estate will thus be lost permanently. Furthermore, it is impossible at present for the bona fide European purchaser to get a good title to land he may wish to buy. The development of the country is thus checked, and the taking up of estates with the object of growing cotton, rubber, cocoanuts, &c., is seriously hampered. A proposal has lately been forwarded to the Secretary of State to constitute a Land Court with power to call for and examine existing titles and to issue to the approved claimants new and indefeasible Government titles.

The District Surveyor, as head of the cadastral survey work in the district, should be a member of this Court. In order that the Court may work efficiently, or even at all, it is imperative that the preparation of cadastral plans should be continuously ahead of the registration work. The question of the erection of boun- dary marks or beacons requires attention. It is one of the duties of the surveyor to mark upon the ground, in a permanent manner, all points where the estate boun- dary changes direction, a service which is paid for by the landowner on a fixed scale. This duty has apparently been much neglected by licensed surveyors. No deed plan should be accepted unless the beaconed points are plainly indicated and the nature of each beacon described. At the same time it should be clearly understood that it is not the duty of the Survey to cut the whole boundary line; they should, in fact, do no cutting, except where absolutely necessary for their work.

Employment of Natives on Survey Work.

-A considerable amount of correspondence has lately passed between the Colonial Office and the officials of this, and presumably other African Colonies and Protec- torates, on the question of the possibility of training natives for survey work, and the Secretary of State is doubtless in possession of the opinion of experienced officers upon this somewhat difficult subject. It is naturally one upon which a stranger, both to the country and its inhabitants, is somewhat diffident in expressing any view.

There seems to be a general recognition that the East African native is, at present, quite incapable of being trained to any really skilled work and that, if he were so trained, there is no guarantee that the individual will remain in con- stant employment for more than a few months at a time. A very short period spent in his native village is sufficient for him to unlearn all he has been taught and the labour of educating him is thus lost. To start a training school, even on the smallest scale, in this country would appear to be an enterprise of very doubtful utility.

There is some chance that boys who have been given the requisite rudiments of education and have been partially drilled into orderly habits might be obtained from the mission schools. The Director of Surveys is fully alive to the importance of this question and an effort will be made to find and give employment to such boys, watching the result with care,

It is probably not practicable to send natives from this country to a training establishment on the West Coast, say, the proposed school at Accra. Firstly, very few speak English; secondly, it would be difficult to get men with sufficient ambition or tenacity of purpose to concentrate their attention upon one subject for such length of time as to attain even moderate proficiency; and, thirdly, as already stated, they would probably return to their homes and forget all they had learnt in the shortest possible time.

There remains the question as to whether West Coast natives, trained at Accra, could be economically employed in East Africa. In this case the climate of the highlands would almost certainly be disastrous, but there is no reason why such men, assuming they can acquire the needful skill, should not be tried in the coast district where the climatic conditions are not materially different from those to which they are bred. A number of natives of India are already on the survey staff, and the Director is in communication with the Surveyor-General of India with a view of getting more. Some of these men obtained through the Protectorate Agent at Bombay have not proved entirely satisfactory.

Surveys upon Military Expeditions.

In the event of its being found necessary to send an expeditionary force to any little known part of the Protectorate, advantage should be taken of the opportunity to secure reconnaissance surveys of the district.

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To this end it would be most advantageous that a small survey section, say one officer and two non-commissioned officers, drawn from the Survey Department, should be attached to such an expedition.

By this means not only would the section itself be able to obtain valuable geographical information, but also the presence and assistance of a trained survey officer would enormously help the military officers of the force in making the ordinary reconnaissance sketches. He would, for instance, be able in most cases to carry out a rapid triangulation, a task generally beyond the power of the regimental officer, and thus give a number of fixed points for the sketchers to work upon.

In many other ways he could aid and co-ordinate their work, so that what might in ordinary cases be a few disconnected sketches of little or no geographical value would be harmonised into a useful preliminary map of the country. It is unfortunately the case that when military operations have to be undertaken it is often found that there are no maps of the area available even though traversed on a previous occasion by a British force.

has been

The scandal of such a state of affairs is manifest. By a rigid adherence to the practice of always attaching a survey section to a force moving through an unmapped country, the recurrence of such a lamentable incident can be avoided.

February 21, 1907.

12841

No. 28.

COLONIAL SURVEY COMMITTEE. MINUTES OF MEETING OF 11TH APRIL, 1907. Present:

E. II. HILLS.

Colonel R. C. Hellard, Royal Engineers, Director-General, Ordnance Survey. Major C. F. Close, C.M.G., Royal Engineers, Topographical Section, War

Office; and

Mr. H. J. Read, Colonial Office; and

Mr. W. C. Bottomley, Colonial Office, Secretary.

1. Major Hills's Report on the Survey Department of the East Africa Protectorate. With regard to Major Hills's remarks, in the letter covering the Report, as to the survey of the Sotik District, it was observed that the step was taken advisedly after consideration by the Commissioner and Colonel Montgomery, and that, although it appeared that the time occupied might have been devoted with greater immediate utility to the districts which are actually being taken up, the survey would eventually be of value.

The Committee recommended that the attention of the Commissioner should be drawn to Major Hills's remarks as to the necessity of devoting special attention to the organization of the cadastral branch, and to the desirability of arranging for the assembly of the Land Board, which need not be deferred longer now that steps were being taken for the appointment of heads of the Agricultural and Forestry Departments. It was also recommended that the Commissioner should be asked to bear in mind Major Hills's suggestion that survey officers should accompany future military expeditions. Major Close pointed out that the rule was observed in India with good effects, and that it would be useful in East Africa, particularly if the work so executed could be joined up with previous results.

The Committee noted Major Hills's observations as to the utilisation of skilled native labour, from which it appeared that the only possibility at present was to employ natives of West Africa in the coast districts. It was agreed that no action could be taken at present.

With regard to Major Hills's recommendations as to maps, Major Close pointed out that all War Office maps of the scale of 1/250,000 were now issued in the size of 1 degree square, and that this size, with a size of 30 minutes square in the case of the 1/125,000 scale, should be adopted in the East Africa Protectorate.

It was recommended that a copy of the Report should be sent to the Treasury

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