Chinese Contractors... The latter were frequently left many months without payment for no adequate reason at all, or rather for the want of necessary consequences. The result was that these well-known delays induced the Contractors to increase the price demanded in their tenders for Government work.... This was a subject very carefully gone into by the Committee, who had examined many of the best-known Contractors, and he thinks the matter extremely important, at the same time that it admits of easy and complete proof.
"The Honorable Thomas Child ... Anglican clergyman, and its Presiding Chairman, stated that he would adopt the advice... His jurisdiction therefore is to call on Mr. Monson for explanations regarding the several charges above named, and to lay such explanations before the Council - in no way palliating or justifying himself, that being the course prescribed by their usual Instructions."
14 (Five Weeks) Yours faithfully,
Mant[o]ro, Clerk of Commons.