Several casual conversations with me on cement, also on the quality of local clays and their adaptability for bricks and for the best method of manufacture and the likelihood of the Government, the English community and the Chinese people using any of the locally made bricks or cement. I forget what views I have expressed in my reply, but I have decided opinions as to the standard of quality necessary for efficiency.
In order to secure an answer to Mr. Orange, I must have satisfied him that there was no chance of the Public Works Department becoming a customer of the local Brick and Cement Company. Some months subsequently, I learnt that Mr. Orange had, on behalf and at the request of Mr. Chater, written home for samples of cement clinker for Mr. Chater to experiment on.
I attached no importance to the circumstance and dismissed it from my mind until quite recently when I was summoned to give evidence before a Board of Enquiry composed of the Attorney General and the Treasurer. As my evidence was taken down, I presume it will be transmitted to His Excellency the Acting Governor. From what dropped from members of the Board of Enquiry, it was impossible not to infer that a grave charge had been suggested against Mr. Orange.
It was hinted that he had been making fake reports to me of the tests I had ordered him to make at Pokfulam of the cement shipped by the Crown agents, disparaging that cement with a view to substituting the local company's manufacture in its stead. Knowing the rectitude of character of Mr. Orange...