CO885-(18-19) — Page 694

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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C.O.885

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19 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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CROWN AGENTS' ENQUIRY COMMITTEE:

Mr. J. 11. Rɛgs, C.V.O., C.LE., M.P.

That opens up a very wishe fickl, but first 1 would ask you-do you consider, as far as your knowledge of the City go, that the Crown Agents give satisfaction in their position as intermediaries–Giving my own opinion. I cannot myself think that it is desirable that there shall by another Colonial otlice between the Colonial Oilice' and the City. Practically what hap- pens that, as eontracts are made with the Crown Agents, they become almost the Colonial Office as far as the business done with the City is concerned. They stand between the contracting parties and the Secre tary of State. Now, for instance, taking a contract with which I am acquainted, our original contract was made with the Crown Agents on behalf of the Foreign Office, and for that Colonial Office was sub- stituted when that office took over Nyasaland from the Foreign lice. A supplementary contract le mes necessary, and then that is mad, by the Crown Agents on behalf of the Government of Nyasaland. In both eases the authority with which we have to deal is the Crown Agents, anil in eminetion with every point in our contract everything has to be done to the satis faction of the Crown Agents—to the satisfaction of the engineer appointed by the Crown Agents-and, as I presume they are regarded as experts in respect of their business, practically it seems to me that under existing arrangements those who enter into contracts are almost shut off from the Colonial Office, at any rate it places them in the position of appearing to be appealing against the Crown Agents or to be taking. exception to what they do if they come directly to the Colonial Office, which is what instinet would prompt me, at any rate, to do in any such case. Probably the same consideration might weigh with others in the same position, but I have a little diffienlty in enlarg ing up this b cause I feel some delicacy in criti- cising the Crown Agents at the moment owing to my wn position as the chairman of a company which has an extremely large contraet with these gentlemen.

497. Perhaps you could tell us how that stands ?--I will; naturally it is my duty, and I should like to do so, but how do I stand as regards my evidence? It seems to me that it places me in a somewhat in- vidious position with regard to the other party to the contract. This illustrates extremely well, I think, the position that I take up as regards the existence of the Crown Agents in their present capacity.

138. Could you elaborate that? You are in a diffi calty, you tell us, because you desire to criticise, as a Member of Parliament, the organisation of the Crown Agents; you think it might be improved, or that it is not required at all, as the case may be, but at any rate you find a difficulty, because you are at this moment chairman of a company which has a contract with the Crown Agents; which company is it?-The British Central Africa Company.

400 Which is building this important railway'-It is a very expensivo railway, if not very long.

500. (Sir Francis Moratt.) You are distinguishing your criticisms. I understand, between the department and the persons-I am rather asking how I stand myself. If I state exactly what I think and criticise the other parties to the contract of which I represent one side, are my criticisms at their disposal, and will it conduce to friendly relations between myself and the Crown Agents in the further prosecution of the enter priso? I am bound to say that whenever I have approached the Colonial Office directly nothing coul exceed the courtesy, attention, and consideration I have always received, but I do at the same time feel that when the Colonial Office have got between us and them body of experts served by another body of experts, engineers and so forth, we certainly are cut off to a great extent from the Secretary of State, and T think that in the City the feeling is rather prevalent (which I have very strongly myself) that the Secretary if State from his postiền' has a lofty impartiality- he and the Under-Secretary of State and their agents in this office have a position which cannot attach to the Crown Agents,

501. (Mr. Harris.) May one put it to you that after all the Seer tary of Stal ritust have some export advisers at some point?—I quite agree, but must there be between those experts and himself a bedy who, for -instance, in respect of a particular of a

expert? Take, for instance the engineer, we have to

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satisfy the engineer, and nobody wouhl object to that. That engineer is an expert, but he is under the Crown Agents, and not iminediately under the Colonial Office. I might come to you, for instance (we will re- gard this as hypothetical, if I may ask it), audi say :" I Consider that the requirements of the engineer appoin ted by the Crown Agent are excessive, 50 excessive as fo double, perhaps treble, the cost of our contract, a most serious matter,' But you would say to u̟a: “Well, we will give instructions that a proper regard for th execeding great difficulties under which the contract is carried out is to be accorded to" myself, let me say, the hypothetical person; but then we are left, after all, with the Crown Agents as the other parties to the contract and the engineer is their servant appointed by them, dismissible by them and entirely their servant, and the actual position of the Crown Agents themselves is that they are not Civil servants.

501a. So that what you anggist is this, that you de not so much object to an expert control under the Secretary of State, but you do object to its being rather too listant from the base—too independent vi the have; is that it ?-Quite se

302. (Sir Francis Mowatt.) Might you put it this way: You đọc not object to an expert adviser under the Secretary of State, but you do not want an expert adviser over the Secretary of State?That is NO.

503. Would you carry that question a little further? You recognise that the Secretary of State in any deci- sion on a professional matter must have professional advice?—Oh, yes.

501. Then your view would be met by your represen- tations coming directly to the Secretary of State on a matter of contract, and the Secretary of State in turn referring that for the opinion of his expert adviser before he answers you ?—Quite so.

505. That is the usual course throughout the Civil Service? That would be the usual course in the India Office next door, for instance.

500. That is your idea of the solution of the quest tion ?--Yes.

507. You do not object to the Secretary of State cun- sulting his professional advisers before deciding, but you would rather that the application went to the Colonial Office and was referred by the Colonial Othe to the Crown Agents or their professional adviser fora report instead of your going direct to the Crown Agents' professional adviser, who would go to the Sec- retary of State if he thought fit-But your question. Sir, assumes the existence of the Crown Agents.

508. I am afrail, without assuming the existence of the Crown Agents, this Committee does not exactly know what it is sitting round this table for?—It assumes their continued existence, then; it takes it for granted, because, as I would venture to put it, anyboxly who had a contract with the Colonial Offer would certainly expect that the Secretary of State should have expert advisers in all respects, but the contractors would prefer to come to the Secretary ui

State.

509. To confe to the Colonial Office?-To come to the Colonial Office, and that the Secretary of State should refer it to an expert adviser through the Crown Agent, but why is the link of the Crown Agent required?

510. Very well. we will strike that out?--If you strike it out, the question, as you put is, exactly evincides with my opinion.

511. You do not object to the Secretary of State having professional advice before he decides; whether that professional adviser is the Crown Agent or an outside engineer or other person is a part of Colonial Office administration and constitution, but I gathered that your objection was that the Crown Agents were in fact, to inuch independent of the decision of the Soeptary of State?

512. (Chairman.) I might put it in this way to you. From something you let drop in the course of a previous reply your view is that if the arrangement wem the same as obtains at the India Office that would seem to you to be a better arrangement ?-That woubleliminat any little Colonial office outside the large Colonial Office.

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

Mr. J. D. Rers, C.V.O., C.I.E., M.P.

13. That is your point?—And it would cut out the non-civil servant, half independent and half sub- ordinate to the Colonial Office, element which exists in the Crown Agents.

514. We understand. It was suggested to me by Sir Francis just before you came in that if you thought it advisable to tell us just how your relations with the Crown Agents have grown up- the story, as you know it, of your company, it might be very useful 1. You may not want to make any charges, but just to say how you have found difficulties, and then, of course, the Crown Agents would point out to us in reply that greater difficulties would occur if another method were adopted. At least, that would probably be their answer, so that in order to hear both sides if we could hear what has happened to you and how diffienīties have grisen in connection with your com- pany it would be desirable? -I am extremely anxious not to make any chargo against them; that is exactly my wish. Briefly, it is this: une makes a contract my company, for instance, makes a contract tu con- struct a railway under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty, not like the Uganda Railway or the Gold Coast Railway in which you are on the sea from which you get your material, and as you make your line you carry it forward mile by mife, and your base is the sea, just what you want to bring your material, and you go on.

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515. This is the railway in Nyasaland you referring tol I am speaking of other railways now; they have been accustomed to do that. We contracted with them to build a railway to be made under en- tirely different conditions 250 miles from the sea up an affluent of a great fropical river which is navigable enly four months in the year I doubt if three gentle men who have never been in this Protectorate, who have n› personal knowledge of it, and have sent out an enginer to exact a wooden compliance-a drastic com- pliance with certain sections of a contract. are alto- gether able to appreciate the exceeding great diffi- culties under which an enterprise like that is con- ducted; and, as they have been accustomed for in- stance in their own construction to run to something from £10,000 a mile upwards. I do not know that they would have that keen sympathy with the posi tion of commercial men who want to make a railway at a profit. We have to make the railway at such a prio that subsequently we enn make it pay. The denial agents are accustomed to making railways under such conditions that they are superior entirely to that consideration; they have not to consider what will make it pay.

alt, (Sir Francis Muratt.) Are these contracts com- petitive Are the tenders put out to certain com- panies to compete for them?As regards the contract. for construction of the line?

517. Yes. No, the contract in the case I speak of was originally concluded before the Protectorate in question was under the Colonial Office; the arrange- het was made with the Foreign Office, and the original contract was made with my company by the Crown Agents on behalf of the Foreign Office,

518, (Sir Ralph Moor.) It was originally a conces sion to build a railway? Yes. I would point out to you how very serious this question is. Of course, a Condition of the concession is that a certain large ex- tent of land is to become the property of the railway when the line is completed to the satisfaction of the engineer of the Crown Agents. Supposing these gentle- men in good faith, upon their experience as con- structors with unlimited funds (and such people are apt take rather a high line about things; they do not seem to consider the exceeding great difficulties in obtaining labour and in getting cement for instance and other material), exact a standard which is unneces sarily high, and suppose they do not allow sufficiently for the difficulties of the situation and the local require ments, then when the time comes for their engineer 1 satisfy them that the line is up to standard, sup

using they err in their appreciation of the case and will not give a certificate that it is up to standard, the constructors of this line are bereft of the land grants and they cannot get them until they satisfy these engineer representatives of the Crown Agents. It seems to me that in a case like that the Crown Agents might go on prescribing further capital ex-

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penditure and further capital expenditure until the total expenditure approached the absolutely appalling limits which it has reached in lines which they have themselves constructed.

510, (Chairman.) Which they have constructed 7— Which they have constructed themselves. Here they are merely parties to the contract, and we are con structing it, but they themselves have constructed

departmentally in other cases in Africa, and although, as I say, they have had the sea as their Ise, which is just everything in building a railway, to be able to put your material on the ground and carry it forward in your construction trains as you go along, if their lines reach this tremendous figure under those circumstances, are they quite in a position to decide what is a sufficient compliance with the Riandard mentioned in a contract that is made unler far greater difficulties and has necessarily to be carried out at less expense?

520. (Sir Francis Mouratt.) You admit a right of appeal to the Colonial Office if the criticism of the Crown Agents Engineer is in your opinion unneces- sarily Mrict I do not think it is provided for in the contract, but it would exist. I presume, because the contract is made by the Crown Agents on behalf of the Colonial Office. There is a right of arbitration. of course; there is an arbitration section, but that is rather late in the day.

521. (Mr. Harris.) It is the case, is it not, that the Crown Agents always said there ought to be a defi nite specification attached to that contract, and they have complained that because there was no definite specification they were in great difficulties as to where to meet you and where not to meet you; to be quite fair to them, is not that so?-1 know there is no specification; what their feelings on that matter have been I do not know, but they drafted the original con

traci.

522. You at that time were not one of the contrac- tors-No. I was not.

523. So that you do not know, of your own know- ledge, that they did press for a specification and it was not given?-I think they raised that point, and I do not think they were favourable to the contract in any respect so far as I know. They were not under- stool to regard it with favour; I rather gathered the impression which you yourself have stated now, but I never heard anything conclusive on this particular point, because, as you say, I was not there at the time. 521. Of course, you admit that if you have not a specification for work it leaves a good deal to the imagination --Yes, but it says, "up to the standard of the Mafeking-Buluwayo Railway as at 1902." and I think for a pioneer line in Central Africa that is pretty precise, it is near enough; in fact, it is quite as near as you can go. How could you have specifica tions for masonry for instance in a case where there is no mason, and masonry cannot be done (there is not a stonemason in the country), and where you cannot get cement? I do not know exactly what our content has cost, but I think it is something like three times its value. We have tried no cement but abso- Tutely the best that can be made, because none other will stand the climate; it has to be sent out in casks and a lot of it spoils on the way. The River Zambesi

is open all the year round, but directly you reach the Shire, which you have to go up about 70 or 80 miles before you begin, there is no water for many months in the year, and the oment has to lie on the banks out in the open for months before it can go on. The same thing applies to all the material. I do not think you could have a close specification.

525. (Sir Francis Muwatt.) Is the question between yourselves and the Crown Agents this: that in point of fact you have worked up to the specification, and that they desire to interpret or construe, not the specification, but the nearest advance you have got to a comparison with this other railroad-too strictly I cannot say, Icause we have not reachst that point, and there is no specification. and I not bringing any charge or complaint against them: I u

the thing rather hypothetically.

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but I may say, and I think I ought to say, that we do think that the engineer generally has extracted tou much from us, and that the ides has rather been that

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