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Mr. Cave : There was a request that the plea of assignment should be withdrawn on the ground1 of the reassignment. Mr. Bell: The additional plea setting up the assignment was delivered on the 11th December. The letter from Messrs. Brogden's solicitors, requesting leave to amend their petition, was dated the 19th June, 1878. Mr. Cave : Of course, they had to communicate with England. Mr. Bell: I submit that the proper course for the Messrs. Brogdens to have followed, instead of having the money reassigned, would have been to have a new petition of right in December, 1877. At any rate, all 1878 was lost by the action of Messrs. Brogden. It may have been caused through the absence of Messrs. Brogden in England. This assignment, I believe, was only some family arrangement, but it caused the delay,. However, put it as we may, the waste of time in 1877 and 1878 was caused by the Messrs. Brogden, and not by the Government. But even then there was time to have had the question decided, before the time had gone by, when these claims could be fairly examined. But what was done ? Application was made to the Grey Government in 1878 for leave to file a petition of right in the Invercargill-Mataura claim. The Governor's assent was endorsed on this petition on the 2nd November, 1878, and the petition was not filed in the Supreme Court until the Bth June, 1881. They kept it all that time. The explanation that Messrs. Brogden gave of that is, that Mr. A. Brogden was unable to come to the colony till the end of the year 1880, and that the petition was kept until Mr. Brogden's arrival. After his arrival in the end of the year 1880, he had some communication with the Minister for Public Works, which explains the delay between his arrival and the filing of the petition in June, 1881. But no reasonable explanation is offered why they did absolutely nothing in 1879 and 1880. They wasted those two years, and nothing whatever was done in them. The effect of all this delay, which has undoubtedly been caused by the Brogdens,. and not by the Government, has been to scatter the Government evidence to the winds of heaven. The investigation, which we were not only willing but anxious to have in 1877, is an investigation which cannot take place in 1882. I do not say that many of the items of the claims cannot be aseasily investigated now as then. My observations are not pointed to all. What Ido say is, that as. to the major part of the items of these claims, the evidence available to the Government in 1877 is not available now. And 1 assert this as an indisputable fact, that the delay has been in no sense the act of the Government. The delay throughout has been the act of the Messrs. Brogden, however they may explain it. They have wasted five years in fruitless litigation, they have wasted evidence for the Crown, they have wasted their own evidence, they have said so over and over again, and I dare say it is true. It is important that the Committee should be satisfied who have been the cause of the delay in the investigation of the claims they are now asked to allow to be brought into Court. I now desire to show the Committee how the claims arose to enable them to decide whether such claims can, after such a lapse of time, be properly heard in any court of arbitration or of law. The provisions of the contract stipulate that the contractors shall have an agent upon the ground, who shall be the contractor's representative, and the method was adopted by the Government of having monthly abstracts of extra work, signed by the Engineer and the Contractors' agent on each contract, which were supposed by the Government Engineers (and have always been supposed) to settle conclusively the quantity and price of the extra work done during the previous month. And these abstracts were in nearly every case, in the vast majority of cases, signed by both the Contractors' agent and the Engineer. The Contractor's agent took the measurements and prices of the work for which he signed the abstract sheets. But there would, of course, at the time have been other evidence available of all what had been done during the month, both on the part of the Engineer and the agent, such additional evidence is no longer available. lam not speaking in a general way of facts which are not within my absolute personal knowledge. I will put before the Committee the monthly abstract sheets for extras on the Invercargill-Mataura contract, and the claim now made in that case, and if the Committee will permit me to trespass for one moment by entering into detail, I will instance one particular item of that claim as an example. It is a matter which will explain itself to the Committee. In these abstract sheets a certain price is fixed for the different classes of work, such as culverts, earth-work cuttings, and so on. Throughout the price of earthwork in the Edendale cutting is fixed at 2s. a cubic yard, that is agreed to by both the agent and the Engineer, and the abstract sheets are signed as correct by the Resident Engineer and the agent. This item appears in the claim at 2s. 6d. and 4s. a yard, and 32| per cent in addition to the 2s. 6d and 4s. is claimed upon all extra work. Well, I have taken an instance which is not a particularly good one for my purpose, of a question of price in disputeNow the dispute is as to whether a price fixed by the Engineer in 1874, and assented to by the agent is a fair one, and if there is to be an appeal from the certificate of both parties. It is obvious that evidence that would have then been available as to what was a fair price at the time is not available now. Of course, this work extended to 1876, and probably the actual work to which lam referring was done about 1874. Mr. Macandrew : Do I understand that they now claim 2s. 6d. and 4s. for what their agent agreed to then at 2s. ? Mr. Bell ; Yes. I will read an extract to show what I refer to. It is in reference to what wascalled the Big Cutting in this contract. This was in 1874. There are 2,930 cubic yards of work at the rate of 2s. a yard, and that total is £273. That is signed as correct by W. E. Brunton, the Engineer; it is signed also by Mr. Armstrong, the contractor's agent. Mr. Macandrew : Are these persons all alive ? Mr. Bell: No. W. E. Brunton is dead; and the other Mr. Brunton, —both the Government Engineers were named Brunton, —is now in the employ of my friend's clients. I take that as an. instance to show the difficulty of proving now what was a fair price in 1874. It would not have been so difficult to have decided that in 1877, because then more evidence would have been available. I do not rely only upon the evidence of the Resident Engineer, but also on the evidence of contractors who had works during the same time, and workmen of the contractors, whose evidence, —I speak from experience,—it would now be exceedingly difficult to get. Having given an instance of a ques-