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had been appointed to succeed Mr. Cooper as Director of Public Works. A survey of the entire route was then undertaken, under Mr. Ormesby's direction, and in August, 1898 that gentleman's Report was forwarded for the Committee's consideration.
In his Report the following passage occurs:
"I am strongly in favour of first constructing the Road between Shau Ki Wan and Aberdeen and so completing a circular road round the Island, leaving the construction of the section round Mount Davis (i.e. from Kennedy Town to Aberdeen) for future consideration."
16. That was the first intimation which the Committee received of any proposal to deviate from the scheme which had been decided upon in April, 1897.
The Committee wish here to point out that Mr. Ormesby had then only 10 months' sojourn in the Colony and on the strength of that comparatively brief sojourn he proposed to upset the scheme which had been prepared by the Jubilee Committee (of which his predecessor, Mr. Cooper, was a member) and had received the approval of His Excellency the Governor, Sir William Robinson, and of the Secretary of State. All the members of the Committee are men of standing and many of them have spent much of their lives in the Colony.