( 127 )
15
7
9
40
1
Q-And if you have not ordered the goods you send them back to them?
A-Yes.
Q-Have you ever known a case of cement arriving in your Department without requisition ? *
A-No, never.
Q-And you were in your Department during the whole time Mr. ORMSBY was Director of Public Works ?
A-Yes. I think I made a mistake just now in talking about $900 to the Crown Agents. $90,454 was their total account, on which they got I per cent. In fact, I have their total account here since 1894, and it has only been beaten once, and that was in 1894.
Q-Would you kindly give us that return, please?
A—Yes, I will give it to you to-morrow-that is, the stores received from the Crown Agents from 1894 to 1901 included.†
The Chairman.-There is a good deal of misapprehension about the Crown Agents. They are Civil Servants and salaried officers, paid out of the public funds. Of course, they have a very large establishment.
By Mr. Shewan.-Would it be possible for you, when indenting for any par- ticular article to ask them to kindly tell you who the different tenderers were ?
A-They do so; they send the tenders to us.
Q-Do you notice if they particularly favour any one?
A -I have not seen a complete list of the people they deal with. We may have ten tenderers, and thirty may be on the list, but they send out the tenders received to us here. They always accept the lowest.
Q-The tendering doesn't seem confined to a few?
A-There are usually a lot of tenderers, as far as that goes-six or seven.
A-Yes, generally speaking, for the same articles.
2
Q-Are they the same names always ?
3
Q-You don't get a wide range of firms ?
A-No.
4
Q-For instance, in iron girders?
A-I should say six or seven.
5
6
7
Q-There should be a great many tenderers for that ?
A-I don't know the conditions upon which they take these names and put them on the list.
By Mr. Master.-Can you tell from the files in your Department whether the Crown Agents are in the habit of taking tenders from the same firm?
A-Yes.
Mr. Master.-I should like to know that.
By Mr. Shewan. Mr. Wood, do I understand you to say that the Crown Agents have a list of people from whom they invite tenders, and that they don't ask tenders from anybody not on the list ?
A-No.
Appendix No. 23. Appendix No. 21,
259