THE SURVEY QUESTION.
IN the Straits Settlements the "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 Société 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 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
