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22 cents per cubic foot for professional superintendence and direction, skilled and ordinary labour. This makes a total of 2,131-80 dols., or, in round numbers, 2,100 dols.

6. In affording this assistance to the Coal Company it has been my object to give it on terms which are the most advantageous to the Company, and only to secure to the Government a fair and moderate remuneration for the professional services and labour which it lends.

7. To give your Lordship a proof that the terms which we have asked are moderate I will refer to the estimates prepared by Major M'Nair, the Colonial Engineer of the Straits Settlements, for making a railway at Singapore. These estimates formed part of

a report by the Colonial Engineer, which appears to have been laid before the Council at Singapore on the 14th August, 1871. Major M'Nair has there estimated the cost of carpenters' labour in the construction of a bridge, a work of a similar nature to the con- struction of a wharf, at 60 cents per cubic foot. This charge was for carpenters' labour only and did not include the charge for superintendence. We have here undertaken to do similar work for 22 cents per cubic foot, inclusive of all charges for superintendence.

8. I inclose a copy of the agreement (Inclosure No. 1) and a plan (on a reduced scale) of the wharf (Inclosure No. 2), showing in black colour what has been previously executed and in red colour what we have undertaken to perform; and I trust the course

I have taken will meet with your Lordship's approval.

9. The wharf for the continuation and completion of which this agreement has been made, was commenced by Mr. Lumsden, the Company's late manager, in September 1870, but discontinued in the following March, 1871.

10. In its construction during that time the Public Works Department was employed,

but on different terms from those on which it now renews the construction.

The Company then paid 25 and 30 cents per day for every man employed under the

Department.

It will now pay a contract price for the performance of the work. Up to the time of the suspension of the work in March 1871, the Department appears to have received

a total of 673 dol. 10 cents from the Company."

11. The greater part, and this the more difficult portion, of the wharf remains to be completed and it is necessary that I should inform your Lordship of this because the sum of 2,100 dols., which the Department is to receive for its completion, is treble the sum it received for the work already done, and because I observe that my predecessor alludes to the wharf as having been "nearly completed."

12. I think my predecessor must have misapprehended the full extent of the undertaking, for in the first reference which, so far as I can find, he makes to the wharf (despatch No. 53, par. 20, November 23, 1870) he says:-"The convicts are now employed, some in working at the colliery, some in loading ships with coal, some in completing the wharf in Victoria Harbour and in building the coal sheds close to the wharf."

He alludes again to the wharf in his Address to the Council on June 10, 1871, which was forwarded with his despatch No. 26 of the 3rd August, and in his subsequent despatch

to your Lordship (No. 19) of July 7, 1871, where he says:-"The wharf which Mr. Lumsden nearly completed at this site has been already of much advantage to the Company."

be executed.

13. Your Lordship will therefore desire that I should explain to you the exact proportion of the work that has been executed and the exact proportion that remains to

14. As the further construction of the wharf will involve some alteration in form from that laid down in the original design. I inclose a plan (on reduced scale) of the original design (Inclosure No. 3), in which your Lordship will perceive, traced in black colour the completed portion of the wharf, and, traced in red colour, the portion left unconstructed.

15. According to this design a causeway was to be formed from the street to the part of the beach to where the wharf would commence, a distance of 150 feet. From the causeway the wharf was to run out on piles a distance of 137 feet into the sea where it would find a depth of 20 feet at low water. In this length of wharf there were to be driven ten tiers of piles, six tiers consisting of eight piles each and the remainder of seren piles each. At a distance of 106 feet from the causeway it was intended to run out on one side of the wharf a wing at right angles to it, 60 feet in length and 31 in breadth, the wharf thus receiving the shape of the letter L. There would be four tiern of six piles each, in the wing; with a small additional tier of three piles on the inner side of the angle.

16. Thus the wharf would consist of fifteen tiers, with a total number of 103 piles.

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

LTC.O.882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO