British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 235

CHAPTER VIII.

rights to land in that village. The second notice is called the Settlement Notice; it gives the date for the actual commencement of work in the village.

II. Field officers under Assistant Settlement Officers, who work under the supervision of Settlement Officers, then proceed to examine the lands parcel by parcel and to record claims on special forms devised to give as complete information as possible about each parcel and the rights pertaining to it. The field officers at this stage of the work may use croquis or block plans provisionally prepared by the Survey Department. Officers of the Survey of Palestine, as may have been previously decided upon by the directors of the two Departments concerned, may be surveying the land at the same time. In the field work and in the recording of claims, the officers in the villages are assisted by Village Settlement Committees appointed under the provisions of the Ordinance.

III. After all claims have been recorded for a block or group of blocks, schedules of claims are prepared block bv block and posted for a minimum period of fifteen days in order to give publicity and an opportunity for the submission of objections and additional claims.

IV. Officers in the field then send to the Settlement Officer the plans or croquis , claims, schedules of claims, and supporting documents, together with their own reports and observations, or, if there are not many difficult disputes, the Assistant Settlement Officer may retain them at his office in the village. The whole material is then examined and a draft schedule of decisions is prepared, which is used as the basis of an investigation in public by the Settlement Officer or his duly empowered assistant at a time notified to the public. At the public investigation the draft schedule of decisions and the plans are amended where necessary and the schedules of rights and final plans are based on them.

The procedure just described is applicable to blocks of land in which there are no disputes or very few disputes or none affecting boundaries. A dispute affecting a parcel or block boundary, unless the area itself is sufficiently large and of proper dimensions to form a separate parcel, must be settled before a final plan can be prepared. If the whole of a block or most of a block is in dispute, then a Settlement Officer or an Assistant Settlement Officer with judicial powers proceeds to deal with the matter in such number of actions as may be deemed necessary. Further public investigation may not be necessary although where many parcels and persons are concerned it is often desirable to make public a draft schedule of decisions as a precautionary measure against mistakes

Page 235