CHEAP, BUT NOT NASTY.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 267, 2 March 1889, Page 2

CHEAP, BUT NOT NASTY.

Whatever has come over the Harbor Engineer and Mr Sievwright, in regard to the matter of tendering, we are at a loss to understand. There are cases in which it should be considered an offence for a public body to accept the lowest tender, and there are cases in which it should be just the reverse. At the last meeting of the Board tenders were opened for the supply of stone and for horse hire, and in each case the Engineer advised that the lowest tender be not accepted, as he considered neither tenderer could do the work for the money. Those tenderers were Messrs McLoughlin (stone) and Mullane (horse hire). The last-named contract is not an important one, and does not require much attention. Mullane is a trustworthy and practical man, and in a matter of this kind his opinion ought to be as good as that of a highly qualified Engineer. Then as to the stone contract. Mr McLoughlin could desire no better recommendation of his ability and integrity as a contractor than that given him by the Engineer ; he has (it was said) carried his other works out faithfully, is a man of means, and has been previously engaged on the very work for which he was tendering. What better qualifications than these are required to prove that the man ought to know what he was doing ? If Mr McLoughlin was a man of no stability, or was one against whom charges of failure could be brought, or was even a stranger to us, then the rejection of his tender would have been the only wise course open. But in place of any detraction the Engineer paid the tenderer a high compliment. If the tender had been rejected monetary considerations would not alone have had weight; a contractor’s reputation was at stake. A correspondent makes reference to another phase of the subject, and writes as follows:—

Sir,—l think the ratepayers must be pleased at the result of tenders having been sailed for the supply of stone for the harbor works instead of the work being carried out under private contract. According to your report of the Harbor Board meeting the matter would stand thus :— engineer's estimate.

30,000yds 713 yards at £lO6 £4,452 McLKOD’S PRIVATE CONTRACT.

713 yards at £B9 £3,738 mclouohlin’s tender. 713 yards at £54 £2,268 Showing a clear saving of £1470 as between the latter’s tender and McLeod’s private contract, and being £2184 below the Engineer's estimate, or 39J per cent, on the one and nearly 50 per cent, on the other. Now McLoughlin has been on the same work before, and must know what it is worth, and if we accept his tender as being a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work then McLeod has received a bonus of £39 6s 8d for every £lOO he received from the Board, over and above a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, and yet the Engineer seemed inclined to give him a still further bonus of 17 per cent, —I am, &0., Stone,