54403/15/51
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENT IAL
96
Colonial Office,
The Church House,
Great Smith Street,
London, S. W. 1.
2. August, 1951
2
Dear Bowing.
I should be grateful for your help in unravelling a somewhat tangled situation which has developed in our activities to date in the project for establishing a fertilizer factory in the New Territories. I do not know whether you have yet been brought into this picture and if not, feel that you should know about it.
In December last year the Governor sent us a despatch (No.136 of the 12th December, 1950, Secretariat file No.23/641/50) asking us to sound a Mr. L.P. Brunt to see if he would be willing to visit Hong Kong, for about two months, "to advise in detail" on the fertilizer scheme. We duly wrote to Brunt, asking him if he would be willing to give his services as an "expert adviser". He was so willing and the matter was arranged. The relevant telegrams are Colonial Office telegrams Nos. 205, 295, 466 and Hong Kong telegrams Nos. 292, 326, 424. This correspondence makes it clear that at this stage Brunt was a salaried adviser, i.e. an employee of the Hong Kong Government not a consultant.
3.
The next information we had was contained in Hong Kong Saving No. 744 of the 29th June, 1951, which stated that Brunt had finished his work in Hong Kong, had presented a preliminary report and had returned to the United Kingdom "with instructions to draw up full estimates of the cost of the scheme". For his first month in London he was to continue as a salaried employee of the Hong Kong Government, but that arrangements would have to be made for his subsequent payment which would probably have to be made "through whichever firm of consulting engineers he next attaches himself to. He has suggested that in this case payments should be based on the practice of the Association of Consulting Engineers". We were asked to make these arrangements.
4.
Before we received this saving, Brunt called on me and told me that after one month on the old basis he was to be engaged as a consultant, that the initial preparation of the scheme would take 2-3 months, that he might then have to return to Hong Kong to gain approval of the general scheme and that he would then return here to work out details. He could not estimate the cost of the scheme but thought it might run to £3 - 400,000. Subsequently, he sent us a copy of a letter signed by Barnett, which more or less confirms the above so far as his remuneration is concerned and in that he was told that he was "required ..... to proceed with drawing up detailed estimates and plans for a compost factory". (Letter No.23/641/50 of 19th June, 1951). This also ties up with Hong Kong Saving No. 744 referred to above. We therefore put Brunt into touch with the Crown Agents, informed the Governor
T.L. BOWRING, ESQ., 0.B.E.,
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS,
HONG KONG,
/in