To Sir Robert Peel   November 24th, 1843

LIVERPOOL MERCURY November 24, 1843 | Letter IV.

To the Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bart &c., &c.

Sir – My two last letters¹ referred exclusively to the Ordnance survey of Ireland and its abuses; I now essay to address you on a subject of more immediate interest – the competition of the Royal Engineers with the civil surveyors of England, in offering contracts for the mapping of townships for the purposes of tithe commutation.²

The longing eyes of the Royal Engineers appeared to have been fixed on a survey for these purposes long before the competition alluded to took place. In 1837 a select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider the best means of effecting the survey of parishes under the Tithe Act.³ The parties examined were tithe commissioners.⁴ Their opinions were strongly in favour of a general survey of England, and these opinions were founded on the report of an engineer officer.⁵ The latter advocated a system of centralization, similar to that pursued on the Ordnance survey of Ireland. Is it not a fair presumption that this officer had the advice of others of his class? It was expected that the Irish survey would be completed about 1838; how desirable, then, would it be for the officers employed on the latter to move across, and engage without delay, in an undertaking which promised both emolument⁶ and fame. This idea, however, was abandoned, and in 1841 the survey of the six northern counties, on a scale of six inches to a mile, was commenced. In the latter part of this year certain townships in Lancashire, to be surveyed for tithe commutation, were advertised in the usual manner. Then, for the first time, were the civil surveyors compelled to shrink before the prowess of a government competitor.⁷ An inkling to nibble at the cheese, the monopoly of which was previously attempted, was evinced by Captain Tucker, Royal Engineers. He put in a tender for the townships advertised, and owing to the unparalleled lowness of his estimate, he was successful.

This extraordinary proceeding drew from the Lancashire surveyors a memorial⁸ to Sir J. Graham; it was forwarded through J. W. Patten,⁹ Esq., M.P., and the reply of the latter contains the following:–

‘The Master-General¹⁰ and the Board¹¹ have inquired into the circumstances adverted to in the memorial, and have made such communication to the officer in superintendence of the Ordnance survey as will obviate the recurrence of any further ground of complaint of a like nature’.

‘The proceedings which led to that contained in the memorial were unauthorized by the Master-General and Board of Ordnance’.

Before this disclaimer appeared the maps of several townships had been executed by the Royal Engineers, and upon each, in broad, legible characters, was written: ‘Drawn from the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, by order of the Master-General of the Ordnance’.

Now, Sir, which are we to believe? Can we suppose that Mr. Patten would, under the circumstances, state a deliberate falsehood? Assuredly not. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine that an officer and a gentleman, holding a highly responsible public situation, would lend himself to imposition. There is, however, no alternative; the statement of Mr. Patten and that contained on the tithe plans are at direct variance. If one be true the other must be false: if Mr. Patten speaks truth the Royal Engineers must have acted on their own unauthorized caprice, and the superintendence of the Board, is in this instance a mere mockery.

Again, Sir, it is stated that ‘a recurrence of any further ground of complaint would be obviated’. What is the meaning of these words? Is it not that the competition should cease? But the competition has not ceased. The Royal Engineers, since that statement was made, have contracted for half a dozen townships. Must we, then, believe the communication of the Master-general to be a mere ‘tinkling cymbal?’¹² It may be said that there is at present no public competition by tender. This is an unworthy ruse. What care the land surveyors of Lancashire how the competition is carried on, whether openly or clandestinely, when its effects in wresting from them their professional employment are precisely the same? How can it be said that the grounds of complaint are obviated, when a change of means only, in the accomplishment of the ends complained of, has taken place? The answer which the surveyors received has thrown dust in their eyes, and they have slumbered in fancied security ever since, while their insidious adversary¹³ with untiring perseverance, has continued to strike secretly at their interests. By the exercise of the most polite condescension in giving instructions to landowners, as to how they should apply for tithe maps, he has enlisted these powerful auxiliaries in his unfairly privileged crusade against the civil profession.

The Act for the survey of the six northern counties contemplates that they will be finished in 1846-7; by a former calculation I showed that they would not be completed till 1854. Does this not prove an utter disregard for the conditions of the Act, as well as of the demands of the Chamber of Commerce at Manchester who were instrumental in getting it passed? Does it not defeat the designs of the Legislature – to employ the men on an undertaking quite foreign to the subject for which they were appointed? And this is done, without any reference to the Parliament who sanctioned their appointment!

The Ordnance survey is conducted under one Act; the tithe survey under another; the men employed under the former are paid out of funds voted specially for the purpose of carrying out the designs of that Act. A question here arises: – Out of what fund are those men paid who are withdrawn from the Ordnance survey and employed at the tithe maps? Would it not be an unwarranted stretch of power to pay them out of funds voted by Parliament for another purpose? How do these men stand in the accounts of the Royal Engineers? Are they not entered as being employed on the Ordnance survey? If so, are not these accounts inaccurate? Do these accounts show whether the public gain or lose by such undertakings? If the former, do they show the transfer of that gain to the public treasury? If the latter, do they show how the deficiency is made good? These, Sir, are questions to which I, as a subject taxed by the British Government, have a right to demand replies.

I would here notice an argument which has been used in justification of the competition of the Royal Engineers. It has been said, that, as a survey for the six-inch scale was, at all events, to be made, and as the expense of the plotting and drawing only was to be covered by the contract price, the Royal Engineers would, therefore, be able to furnish tithe maps at a cheaper rate than any civil surveyors; and as the ratepayers had borne a portion of the expense of the original survey, they, in justice, should possess whatever advantages might accrue from it. This reasoning is specious; but, Sir, it is false as ‘dead sea fruit’.¹⁴ I here repeat, in stronger terms an assertion contained in my first letter, that, notwithstanding these advantages, and the wretched pittance awarded to the men who drawn them, the actual expense of the tithe maps executed by the Royal Engineers, are, in many cases, more than double the price charged for them. This, Sir, is no secret matter: it is a fact notorious in the Ordnance survey. A Royal Engineer contracts for a township at 4d. an acre – the true cost of that township is perhaps a shilling an acre; whence comes the 8d difference? Is it not, after all, from the public purse? If so, I as a citizen, pay my proportionate part of that 8d as well as the landowner who reaps the benefit of it, and I protest against the justice of taxing me for the sole benefit of another class of the community. If the contract price be insufficient to cover the expenses, the contractor should be the sufferer. The Royal Engineers have had ample proof of their inability to furnish plans at their contract prices, why then do they not raise their estimates or else relinquish the business altogether?

Will an endeavour be made to bring my statements into disrepute by pronouncing them the offspring of private jealousy? Miserable evasion! The question, Sir, is not whence my statements spring, but are these statements true? The gauntlet is before them; I publicly challenge the concentrated sagacity of the Royal Engineers to disprove what I have adduced. Are the civil profession, then, Sir, to be trampled on to gratify the unwholesome ambition of a griping monopolist, while I can furnish them with the means of opposing him? Never, Sir! – never shall my pen repose till I see these individuals stand forth divested of the mysterious veil which has hitherto enveloped their proceedings, and the voice of an enlightened public pronounce between them and

Spectator¹⁵ | Dublin, November 4th, 1843.

RI MS JT/1/TYP/11/3914-3916

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