22
reclamation wall which Sir F. Lugard states was calculated
see paragraph 8 of despatch.
to mislead the Government
There is some confusion here for the Government says
that Consulting Engineers' letter of 11th July was not forwarded by Crown Agents till 8th August and did not reach HongKong Government till 5th September and that the
plan came by a later post addressed direct to Mr. Eyes.
Now the fact is the letter in question was not sent to
Colonial Too
the day at all by Crown Agents.
It was sent by
Crown Agents to us on 15th July and sent by us to
Governor under cover of our despatch of 19th July
apparently with the plan (25142/07) and it should have reached Sir F. Lugard about the middle of August and
that it did so is evident for in despatch of 24th August (33895/07) he acknowledged receipt of our despatch.
Later, the Consulting Engineers sent copies of the letter and plan to Mr. Eves for his information under cover of their letter of 8th August (left Crown Agents 9th August) so instead of Mr. Eyes having the letter andplan before the HongKong Government and keeping them back, as the Governor appears to allege, the fact was that the Colonial
Govern
received them about three weeks before Kr.
his
Bves. The Governor should therefore blame
Secretariat and not Mr. Eves. Kr. Eves appears to have
the misunderstood proposal made by Consulting Engineers in
A this letter of 11th July and thought that it involved a
considerable amount of dredging. He now admits that in
his letter to Colonial Secretary of 16th September his
description of the proposal was inaccurate.
P
4.
Sir F. Lugard also complaine that the tunnel
has not proceeded as fast as it ought to have sone
according to a plan given him by "Messrs. Barry in
London", according to which the bottom heading should
we finished by September 1906 - while at the present
rate it will not be completed at least till August 1911.
The Consulting Engineers say that this plan was
apparently one prepared by Mr. A.J.Barry (who is not
Consulting Engineer for the HongKong Section) to
illustrate a report that it was given to Mr. Eves
as an ideal to which he should endeavour to attain
but that it was never put forward officially by
Consulting Engineers.
The Consulting Engineers add that their estimate
ww
of March 1907 for the completion of the tunnel was
that it should be completed by the end of 1910 Azı d
thut though it is at present somewhat behind, from
recent information there is reason to hope that faster
progress will now be made.
On the other hand Sir F. Lugard recognizes that Mr.
Eves has considerably improved the alignment saving
both distance and cost - that he has produced an
excellent class of brick and that he has been
handicapped by difficulties of transport.
We must remember that Mr. Eves has a personal
interest in the success of the work considerably
4.
greater