CO129-320 - Governor Sir Blake Acting Governor May - 1903 [11-12] — Page 224

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paragraph of Sir Henry Blake's Despatch under reference.

All the evidence in these cases will have

been taken before the end of the year and Mr. Gompertz may be

expected to give his decision early next year.

The Ordinance enclosed herewith has been

passed to facilitate those other arrangements alluded to in

the last paragraph of Sir Henry Blake's Despatch.

4.

The arrangements, approved by Sir Henry

Blake prior to his departure, that I have made and which I

now report for your approval, are as follows:-

(1).

Mr. Gompertz's connection with the Land

Court will cease at the end of the year when he will be trans-

ferred to the Magistracy as Acting Second Police Magistrate

vice Mr. J. H. Kemp at present acting in that post. He will

draw half of Assistant Colonial Secretary's and half of Second

Magistrate's pay; the difference from his own full pay, which

is very small, being made up to him out of the Magistracy Vote.

Mr. Kemp will be transferred to the Sanitary Department to

take up his appointment as Assistant Secretary.

M. Gompertz has done a great deal of work

in the Land Court. He has been painstaking and industrious,

but he has not been business-like in his methods, and I fear

that less real progress has been made than in the time devoted

to the work ought to have been made, and that much of the work

done must, owing to the want of surveys on a large enough

scale for land settlement purposes and to consequent in-

accuracies and mistakes, be done over again.

(2).

The whole of the work in connection with

the land settlement will from the 1st. of January next be

placed