44 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE
I believe that Avas not examinations?'—No;
I Greene has stated that
Sir 1324.
As those several duties had to be at-M.
Griffith, tended to in different places, could you explain
Bart.
'
to the Committee how you legulated your time in attending to them ?—My
tin.e
Avas devoted to 6 May 1869.
each as 'lt was required ; at that time I was in
the habit of travelling from the north to the south of Ireland, so much as 40 times in the year, and I always travelled at night to save the day.
1325.
As the commissioner of valuation, you had the appointment of all the officers under you ?—I
had in the beginning.
1326.
When you say
*f in the beginning,"you mean to imply, I presume, that afterAvards you had not?—When
the office Avas placed under the Treasury my poAver of appointing ceased.
1327/In Avhat year did the office come under the Treasury?—In
1852, under the 15 & 16 Vict.
c.
63.
1328.
At that time your power of appointment ceased ?—It
did.
1329.
During the time that the poAver Avas vested in you to appoint officers for the purpose of carrying out the objects of the Act had you any qualification for the persons to be so em¬ ployed ; had you a qualification examination or a competitive examination, so as to get the best people you could find ?—I
examined them myself personally, both in the house and in the field.
1330.
Was there any regular examination that people could come up to ?—No.
1331.
Was there any competitive examina¬ tion ?—None.
1332.
Colonel Forde.]
the time of competitive am speaking of 1830.
1333.
Chai?mau.]
Mr.
there wTere certain things understood; that the men should be surveyors and neat draughtsmen, and a third qualification was mentioned; were those things generally attended to by you?—
Always.
The Act required that they should be surveyors and valuators of land and houses.
1334.
Y'ou stated that you could give a state¬ ment of the course you pursued Avhen you exa¬ mined them yourself, both in the field and in the office ?—Y'es.
1335.
Would you do so?—The
old townland valuation was commenced in the county of Lon¬ donderry in 1830.
When I came there I inquired of the proprietors and their agents, who were the persons they employed to value for them before letting their lands, for it was a universal practice there (fortunately for me) to let lands by valuation, and not by tender or proposal, as in other parts of Ireland; I then obtained the names of a number of professional surveyors and valua¬ tors Avho had been engaged in those counties, and in the adjoining county of Tyrone; and after a great deal of trouble I fixed upon nine of them, and I collected them in the county of Londonderry; Ave began at Coleraine.
I read the Act of Par¬ liament to them, and told them that the principle of valuation that I wished to followr Avas,
ff Live and let live," the principle, in fact, on which the landlords in the north of Ireland let their lands ; that of a Ioav moderate scale.
I explained to them that they were bound to value the land according to the scale of prices contained in the Act; that they were to ascertain the quality of the land by digging up the active soil and the subsoil; I ex¬ plained that that particular part Avas a basaltic country, that the soil was formed principally of the detritus of the rocks, and that therefore it was necessary in all cases where there were quarries, to go and examine them, and to see the
nature of the herbage derived from the disinteg¬ ration of the rocks.
We went through all the quarries in the first instance, and then we Avent to the land and dug up the soil.
Each man formed his OAvn opinion of the value of the land per acre.
The plan I adopted was: I wrote down my oavii bid first, and then I obtained successively the bids of the nine valuers; I afterwards read them all out, and avo discussed the matter, and after some time came to a conclusion a& to Avhat was a fair price per acre on the principle of " Live and let live.*'
We then went into another field, and found, perhaps, but a slight difference.
Having gone through a number of fields, at the end of the day I read them all out.
The next day I took them into another district, where the soil was different, and Avent through the same process.
I took the geological map in my hand, and made the men masters of my views geologically and minera-logically, and the value of the different soils according to the system that Ave proceeded on.
This school was continued a month, and at the end of that time I separated them into threes, putting one at the head of each party, and I went with each alternately for a Aveek.
At the end of a month I brought them all together again to see how they agreed ; and it Avas perfectly extra¬ ordinary to observe how near they came together; there was rarely a difference of a shilling in the pound.
The expense of this school of valuation wras about 5001.,
and I wrote to the Treasury, asking that the amount should not be put to the cost of the county, and they accordingly gave me the 500 Z.
After that, I began the valuation of county of Londonderry.
1336.
That 500/.
AAas not charged to the county ?—No,
it was not.
1337.
When you speak of a geological map, do you mean the map before the Committee r— Yres; before my public appointments I Avas em¬ ployed as mining engineer and professor of geology by the Royal Dublin Society, that was from 1812 to 1822, and eight months in every year I was in the field making geological surveys of all the mines and collieries in Ireland.
I had, during that period, visited and reported on them all, in fact I had made a geological map of Ireland, so that Avhen a Committee of the House of Commons, of which Lord Monteagle (then Mr.
Spring Rice) was chairman, met to consider the proposed survey and valuation of Ireland, I exhi¬ bited the map to them, together with sections of the strata from north to south and east to west of Ireland.
1338.
The O'Conor Don.]
When was that?
—In 1824.
1339.
Chairman.]
With so many and important duties, and so divided, do you think it possible for any man, however gifted, to attend to thein all, and to give the requisite attention to the valuation 1 — It would appear difficult; but I had selected very good men, and had great confi¬ dence in them, particularly Mr.
John Kelly who was with me many years before ; he was a farmer and surveyor and an excellent judge of land; I very soon made him superintendent of valuation, and he and I used to go clown and meet the valuers.
I think I was able fully to perform my duties.
The boundary survey was in so forward a state that it did not require the same attention as formerly, Avhen there were so many disputed boundaries which I had to settle myself.
1340.
Your duties, as commissioner of valua¬ tion, I presume, required you to give a good deal
of
