THE SURVEY QUESTION. 



the Straits Settlements the u Survey Question " 

 is one which has been before the public for some 

 years and which, especially since 1883, has been 

 the subject of much discussion — discussion which 

 has just culminated in the publication by Govern- 

 ment of a valuable report by an officer of the Survey of 

 India (Lieut. -Colonel BARRON, B.C.S.) especially deputed to 

 study the subject on the spot. 



Some of the questions connected with land-revenue ad- 

 ministration which have been engaging the attention of the 

 Government of these Settlements (1,310 square miles) have 

 recently been under discussion in a much larger Colony — 

 Cochin China — and I have thought that it may be of 

 interest to the members of our Society, and to persons in 

 the Colony interested in land, if I republish here in English 

 a paper on the subject which appeared last year in the Bulletin 

 de la SociHe des Etudes Indo-Chinoises de Saigon. 



I have translated this paper, not because I agree with 

 the principles which M. CAMOUILLY advocates, but because 

 I have been desirous of understanding, in what manner 

 it has been thought possible to carry out, in an Asiatic 

 Colony, registration of title on the Torrens system with- 

 out a preliminary general allotment survey. The argu- 

 ments of the writer are chiefly directed against any 

 project for carrying out a cadastral survey, but he does not 

 seem to realise that some of these arguments, if their 

 cogency is admitted, will militate equally against the intro- 

 duction of the Torrens system, which he advocates. " Never 

 think," says M. CAMOUILLY, " of carrying out a systematic 

 survey of holdings. Do you know what the effect could be ? 

 Why you would destroy the communal system, by which 

 the land-revenue is collected in a lump for each village and 

 would introduce a system of revenue-settlement, holding 

 by holding, which would give infinite trouble." 



Later on, his argument in favour of the Torrens system 

 is something of this sort : — " Annamite land-holders are terribly 

 fleeced by money-lenders, Give them Government titles and 

 they will be able to raise money at reasonable rates from respec- 

 table establishments. Confine your survey to those lots which 



