112 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



are organised throughout the world. What deductions can we make 

 from it ? 



In my statement of the form that I think the ideal National Survey 

 should take, I laid great stress on the desirability of unity of control of all 

 forms of survey. I said I thought that there should be only one survey 

 authority in a country, and that there should be a single control of all 

 survey operations from start to finish. Perhaps the chief point that strikes 

 one in analysing the organisation of National Surveys is the lack of such 

 unity. If we except the Ordnance Survey and the Survey of Egypt, and 

 certain British colonial surveys, such unity of control is conspicuous by its 

 absence ; and one of the most characteristic features of foreign surveys is 

 the almost complete divorce of cadastral from topographical work. They 

 seem to be commonly regarded as things apart. The idea of a single 

 department responsible for all forms of survey appears to be a British 

 idea, as it is only in countries of British nationality or controlled by British 

 that it is found. In fact, it might almost seem that in stating what I 

 believe to be the sound and ideal form of organisation for a National 

 Survey I was merely quoting the practice of the Ordnance Survey. But 

 that is not so. I do not argue that the organisation that I advocate is 

 right merely because it is that of the Ordnance Survey, but because it 

 seems to me absolutely sound and defensible arguing from first principles. 

 The British people have an extraordinary faculty for getting practical 

 things done, and in the end often done well ; but logical and orderly 

 thinking out and arrangement is the last quality I would claim for them as 

 a race. Yet it does seem to me that in survey matters the British have 

 developed eminently logical and sound ideas and have put them most 

 beneficially into practice. 



All surveyors will agree that the idea that there is any essential 

 difference between a cadastral and a topographical map is absurd ; the 

 difference is merely one of degree and not of kind. It seems therefore 

 logical to argue that both should be produced and maintained by the 

 surveyor. Indeed one may put it more strongly, for it is obviously wasteful 

 to send one party into the field to produce one kind of map, and another to 

 produce another kind, when one good map would serve as a basis for all 

 kinds. In Europe the so-called cadastral maps are regarded much less as 

 maps than as diagrams and documents necessary for the purpose of super- 

 vising revenue. They have become to a large extent the documents of a 

 financial department. The question obviously arises whether the countries 

 in question have suffered from this policy. If the argument that all 

 survey should be under one direction is sound, one should be able to show 

 that some disadvantage has resulted where this rule has not been followed. 

 Can this be shown ? Let us take France as a typical example. 



France has a cadastral survey, on a large scale — usually 1 :2,500 — made on 

 the average about a hundred years ago. As far as one can judge — and we 

 had opportunities for doing so during the war — this survey, though not based 

 on any triangulation, was a reasonably accurate one. It has been left 

 practically untouched since. The manuscript plans that one may see on 

 application in the Mairie of any commune show the country as it was in 

 the time of Napoleon. 



This survey must have cost a lot of money to carry out, and the map 



