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By Mr. Thurburn.-You mean to say that your firm are quite as capable of carrying out this good work as the Government?
A-Yes.
By the Chairman.-Whom do you employ as overseers?
A—We have as a rule five or six overseers and we always keep the best men on, and the bad men we simply send away.
Q-Where do you recruit them from ?
A-They are generally sent to us-sometimes by clergymen and benevolent socie- ties. They are men who have had similar work, and they go from place to place. Rev. Mr. FRANCE is a great man for recommending men to us.
Q-They are casual visitors to the Colony and are picked up locally?
A-They go from Colony to Colony. If they hear that Hongkong has a lot of work on, they come away from the place they are in if trade is not so brisk.
Q-We have been told that private firms find difficulty in securing efficient over- seers owing to the class of overseers they employ not being satisfactory ?
A—As a rule, we look after our own work personally to a great extent. sonally, I go around visiting it every day.
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Q--If there is difficulty about efficient supervision even now in connection with the works you have to carry out, how would you get over the difficulty, supposing you had to carry out Government works?
A-In that case we should get out special men from home.
Q-And, by doing that, do you think you could get the work carried out as efficiently and as cheaply as the Government does at present?
A-I think I said we should get it at the same price.
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Q-You don't think you could get it done more cheaply?
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A-We might get it done more cheaply: I daresay we would.
Q-How could that be? You say you would have to get extra overseers from home, and then there would be the commission to pay to the private firm in addition to the original cost?
A-Yes, but the commission would not a:nount to any more than the cost of Government supervision.
Q-You don't think it would?
A-No, I don't think so, You must also take what the rent of Government offices would be, for instance. It all counts. All these things would come into the cost of supervision by Government of the work. It is not only the pay of the engineer.
Q-But then we have a Government staff already. Can you point out where the saving would come in?
A-We might be able to get it done cheaper.
Q-You think it would be cheaper?
A-The probability is we should. I don't say it would be done cheaper.
By Colonel Brown.—Is your firm to receive the contract to carry out the new Reservoir at Kowloon ?
A-I believe so.