to approve the proposal to invite competitive designs for the new Government offices in Hongkong. You add that this method has not been found to work very well in England, partly owing to the difficulty of finding competent judges to decide on the merits of the competing designs, and partly because the selected design may turn out to be the work of an architect or firm of very limited experience in the supervision of actual construction and in dealing with the numberless questions which arise in connection with a large building. You further state that when it is decided to erect the new Government buildings, it will, in your opinion, be desirable to employ the Consulting Architects to the Crown Agents for the Colonies, Messrs Aston Webb and Ingress Bell, who designed the Birmingham Law Courts and other notable buildings, &c.
The Senior Unofficial Member of the Legislative Council, in a Memorandum regarding the scheme for the future accommodation of Government offices, said in paragraph No.17:-
"I wish to record my opinion that the Plans for the new Public offices should be made by local Architects of standing, who, I think, by their experience of local requirements and construction, are far more likely to produce a satisfactory and economical building than any firm of Architects in England. The work already executed in this City seems to me quite proof enough of the ability of the local Architects to undertake the proposed buildings, which, I may mention, are not so large as the blocks now being built on the Reclamation".
A lengthened residence in this Crown Colony, in the Straits Settlements, in India, and the Far East enables me to fully concur in the views expressed by the Senior Unofficial Member on this important question. Will you, therefore, please permit me to earnestly urge the advantages to be derived from entrusting the designs and the building of the Post Office and New Law Courts here to local Architects, who are, in view of their long practical experience of local requirements, better qualified and more competent to successfully execute such works than Architects at a distance of some