Surveys.

The other grievance which has been seriously felt, and has caused a great deal of embarrassment and discontent, arises from the practice of employing private licensed surveyors to make the necessary surveys of the land before it can be passed through the Court. In the Province of Napier, where purchasers are numerous, the Native has had no difficulty in procuring funds to pay for survey of lands that he did not intend to sell; or the intending purchaser, in case of those that he wished to acquire, has found the money, and has seen that the whole work was properly and economically performed. But, in the Province of Auckland, where there is no demand for much of the land that has received a Crown title, and where the Natives are poor, this system works very badly, and has been the means of much trouble both to the Natives and surveyors. The uncertainty of speedy payment causes the surveyors to demand excessive prices for their work. In some instances they have been kept out of their moneys for years, and have been nearly ruined by the delay, or have been obliged to sell their claims to money-lenders at an enormous discount. On the other hand, the Natives have been put to the expense of having their lands surveyed twice or three times over, either from work having been insufficiently done, and the survey having to be again made before the claim could be entertained by the Court, or from opposing claimants each employing their own surveyor for the same or part of the same block of land, because they would not trust their opponent's agent to lay down the boundaries that they insisted on. And the surveyors are so numerous and anxious for employment that they will undertake any work, believing that payment will be made sooner or later, as their claim remains a lien on the land. It is the interest of the licensed interpreter or Native agent, who receives from the surveyor 10 per cent on his receipts, to encourage and urge the Natives to put their lands through the Court. The latter are told or believe that the money need not be paid till the land has been sold, and in certain instances have made that stipulation, with a determination not to sell, and then defraud the surveyor. A loose agreement is drawn up and the work is done, but the land does not sell, or is not passed through the Court: the surveyor, impatient for his money, having perhaps no other means of livelihood, urges his demand, and the Native will either mortgage or sell his land at any sacrifice to avoid further annoyance, or will give a promissory-note; which not being paid, he is brought into the Supreme Court and judgment given against him. If he holds lands under Crown grant, or has other property, it is seized and probably sold far below its value. A maximum charge having been made, and the expenses page 45of the Supreme Court being very heavy, when the Native does at last pay he finds the amount two or three times as much as a European would have been charged for the same work. If he would have applied to the Native Land Court the bill would have been taxed and a reasonable sum adjudged withput the heavy fees of the other Court. But he does not know the law, and the surveyor prefers the Supreme Court, if he can get there.

The letter of Messrs. Turner and Jordan, and other documents which I give in the appendix, will show the existence of all these evils; but I specially quote the case of Ngakapa Whanaunga as being one of great hardship, and the price for which his land was sold at auction was so absurdly low that, if possible, some steps should be taken to cancel the sale. Ngakapa had his lands suryeyed, expecting that an arrangement with a European would enable him to pay for the work; but this arrangement was not carried out, and he gave a promissory-note which he could not meet. He was sued in the Supreme Court for £560, and expenses of different kinds subsequently swelled the debt to over £1,000. He raised £400 on mortgage, and gave security for the remainder on an allotment in the Town of Shortland, on which were erected the Bank of Australasia, the old Union Bank, and other buildings, for which he was receiving a rental of £87 3s. per annum, and on mortgage of which he had been offered a loan of £400, and these were shortly after sold by auction, under writ from the Court, for £35! And he had to dispose of a cutter and other property to meet the balance still due. No wonder the Natives are dissatisfied with English law.

The necessity for the attendance of surveyors in Court to prove surveys is also a grievance to both parties, and cause much unnecessary expense. In one case a Native, named Aherata Mihinui, had to pay £10 for a survey of eleven acres, and £1 1s. a day for eighteen days to the surveyor for attendance at Court, which, with £4 4s. for Court fees, made up a sum of £43 for procuring a title for eleven acres. In December, 1870, several surveyors were detained at Tauranga for nearly a fortnight, living at inns and incurring heavy expense, because the Court would not take their evidence out of turn, though the whole of it might have been given in the course of an afternoon.

I believe that the great expense of surveys, and the consequent evils, may be satisfactorily and entirely avoided if the Government will take the work into their own hands and abolish the present system of private surveying. There is already an organized department, with an efficient staff, capable of undertaking and properly conducting the whole business, with such additional surveyors as the amount of work may require from time to time; and the extra expenses, if not fully met by the payments from the Natives, would be a charge against the provinces, which ought not to object to pay for the extension of a department which has, within the last five years, cost little over £10,000, and has put into their possession maps of survey for more than two and a half million acres of land, the cost of which has been paid for entirely by the Natives, and the value of which is estimated by Mr. Heale at nearly £100,000. In 1865, when the Native Lands Act first came into operation, the Government could not have carried on any systematic survey, as the Natives would not have permitted a chain or other instrument on their lands, but this difficulty now hardly exists, and the work will be better and more regularly performed by a Government department; and by insisting on survey in every instance before cases can be brought into Court, the Government will have in their own hands a means of regulating its business, should motives of policy ever require their interference.