worth discussion. The point, however, to which I would invite Your Lordship's and the Consulting Engineers' serious attention is that a scheme of such a nature should be seriously put forward by the Chief Resident Engineer. The conclusion appears inevitable that he has lost confidence in himself, while the nature of the proposals seem to me unworthy of a man in his position.
There appears to me, I regret to say, to be a certain want of frankness or perhaps I should rather say an attitude of veiled antagonism towards the Government on the part of the Chief Resident Engineer, which I have done my utmost to remove but apparently without success. The Colony very emphatically holds the Governor responsible for the proper control of the large financial outlay on the Railway, upon the ratepayers, the cost of which falls, and for the exercise of that control it is essential that the Chief Resident Engineer should realize his relation towards the Government which, in the words of the Memorandum enclosed in Mr. Lyttelton's Despatch of 5th December, 1904, (Cd.2325) are that he is "an officer of its own......for discipline and general purposes a servant of the Government to whom he looks for instructions on any matters apart from the technical conduct.
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