Should the Breakwater Pier be let by Contract ?

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 313, 18 June 1889, Page 2

Should the Breakwater Pier be let by Contract ?

Thb above question—or perhaps more cor. reotly the question, Will the breakwater pier be let by contract ?—ought to bo decided at to-night’s meeting of the Board, or if it only makes the progress it has been doing, the structure will be completed, so far as it can be completed with the funds in hand, before any practical steps can be taken for a change. We hardly think the majority ot the Board will determinedly oppose the wish ot the ratepayers, which has been so nnmiatakab'y expressed, The petition lying st Mr Parnell's, up to yesterday afternoon, was signed by 138 ratepayers, representing a value of £803,747. The following letters have been received in reference to this subject: — Sin,-I think, with yon, that the opinion of the majority of rstspayars has now been made sufficiently plain to the members of the Harbor Board to prevent them, if they have any respect for the opinion of the ratepayers, from further persisting in the proposal to let the breakwater pier by contract. It has been termed experimenting, but past experience ought to prove to us that it means plunging into the fieihah laws of vexation, litigation, and other evils that will hang ovar the district lika a black pall, betokening the miserable outcome of its blasted hopes. What has been the Harbor Board's experience from the beginning, in the most simple contracts ? Did not Mr Bennstt himself allude to the members as foolish for letting him off as a surety in the K nox contract ? And then what was done in the MoLoughlip contract? Hat, not the Board also, while some of the members have been bragging of the cheapness ot lbs last stone contract (bungle), had to pay Mr McLeod a large sum for work which ho had done to facilitate the means of supply ? If the Board cannot carry the stone contract out properly, or rather see that it is carried out properly, what may be expected when the whole thing ia combined 1 It is nonsense to say that letting tbs pier by contract would be an ” experiment ''—good evidence proves that it would be a very expensive piece of tolly, and no one qught to kqow this batter than those who ars urging such a precipitate step. J atp glad to see that many ot the ratepayers have taken the opportunity to protest against it.—l am, etc., Block.

Sir,—By this time there can be no doubt that the town ratepayers are strongly against the proposal to let the breakwater by contract at this stage of the work, snd I can assure you that the country people feel more strongly in the matter—in fact until the petition you refer to was got qp, the country people regarded the whole business as the undue working of town interests as against those ot the country. lam glad this supposition has proved to be without foundation, for we have always enough to cause distraction without quarrelling with one another on points as to which we ought to be unanimous. Though I was myself at first strongly in favx oj contracting, the reasons against it now are overwhelming. The question, too,- has been allowed to run on eo long that the time is too short for chopping and changing. If it is deoidpd to call for tenders it will be six weeks pr perhaps over two months before a contractor can begin. Then it is a manifest impossibility for any contractor to so reduce the price of labor, no matter how clevtr he may be at nigger driving, to suoh an extent as to make up for the great expense and risk he will be at. Any reasoning person must admit that it would be a fallacy to attempt any change under the altered circumstances.— am, etc., Country.