Office or Individual.
huse
Thomadus
1909
& June
Last Previous Paper.
a 16936
Putly
1739-A. & E. W.-90062/27- 26000-11-08.
MONG KONG
18818
Kowloon Railway
333
DOMESTIC.
C.0.
18818
RP 5 JUN 09
Departmental fonstruction.
Mr. Ginuell,—To ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, if he will inform the House of the reason why the construction of the Kowloon Railway at Hong Kong, laid out by a competent engineer, the length being about 22 miles and the final estimate of cost some £500,000, was not let by public tender to any of the responsible contracting firms willing to construct it for that sum within a specified time, but is being carried on departmentally, with no time limit, at a cost now estimated at over £1,000,000 why the principle of public tender, enforced by other Government Departments, is departed from by the Colonial Office in respect of engineering works in the Colonies, and whether, seeing that the payment to Crown agents of a por- centage on the amount such works cost gives them an interest in increasing that amount, and the control of such works gives them extensive patronage_ in the Colonies and unlimited discretion in the placing of orders for manu- factured materials, also without any test by public tender, he will say when the Colonial Office will, like other public departments, abandon nomination and patronage and adopt public tender in the Colonies as in this Country.
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6.a.
18907.
For Cat
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Hesday 15
15 June For oral reply.
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