(4)
His Excellency however was pleased to reconsider that Resolution, and to suspend it, no doubt through deference to the prohibition of the Secretary of State of any Expenditure whatsoever upon the Bowring Praya during the current year - meaning the financial year 1858-59. His Excellency supplied the place of that Resolution by the Ordinance now upon the Table, an Ordinance subserving it and conducting to it, and in the opinion of the undersigned merely the Resolution itself in another form.
On Monday, the 1st of November, His Excellency moved the second reading of the Ordinance, having previously advertised in the Government Gazette for Tenders for the construction of the Bowring Praya from Navy Bay to Wong-nei-cheong. As the undersigned could not understand how a Causeway formed upon nearly three miles and a half of granite sea wall, upon an artificial foundation obtained in many places out of 20 feet of water, with numerous wharves thrown out upon foundations still more difficult, could be constructed for £19,741.7.3, he asked for an Estimate of the work; whereupon, after debate, the second reading was adjourned to Tuesday, the 16th November, to enable the Surveyor General to prepare the same.
Owing to His Excellency's lamented indisposition, coupled with certain technical difficulties, that second reading against which this Protest stands for record, is now fixed for Tuesday, the 4th February next.
By order of His Honour the Acting Governor in Council, on the 4th January instant, an abstract of the Surveyor General's Estimate was supplied to members, towards guiding their dealings with the Public Funds, and is now before the undersigned. It exhibits the following contrast:- His Excellency's Estimate lay at a point unknown, within £19,741.12.3; the Surveyor General's stands at £87,648. The undersigned takes leave to call the former sum His Excellency's Estimate, bearing in mind that unless the "available balance fully sufficed to construct the Praya," His Excellency was restrained, by the only instructions which he has disclosed to this Council, from entering upon the expenditure at all.
But this is not all. Not only does not the Surveyor General's Estimate provide one farthing of compensation for two Ship-building yards, the special value of which will be totally destroyed by the embankment of their launching-ways, but it does not include the cost of the work from the Parade Ground to the east end of the Military Hospital - a space of some three-quarters of a mile. The whole of that space is Ordnance Ground, and it is presumed His Excellency excluded it from the Estimate, under the expectation that the Board of Ordnance at Home would carry out that section of the work. Should however the Board of Ordnance demur to expending Imperial Funds on the "embellishment" of a remote dependency, the cost of the excepted section as well must ultimately devolve on the local resources, in which case that cost will be augmented to about £112,000, which may be taken as the actual price at a minimum of the bare work itself, apart from all claims for compensation for Lease-hold rights obliterated. The undersigned refuses at first sight to legislate for a measure which, if ever executed at all, must absorb a Capital equal to the entire Colonial Revenue for two years, such Capital being sunk irretrievably, and being utterly and for ever unproductive, and does solemnly protest accordingly.
Fourth. The undersigned now attempts to exhibit how far the work contemplated by this Ordinance is worth the prodigious cost thus established.
Upon the Bowring Praya, Lord Stanley observes as follows:-
"The Bowring Praya or Quay is a work which may conduce to the public convenience, and which will doubtless embellish the City of Victoria; but it appears to Lord Stanley one which ought to be postponed until the Colony can defray it out of its own resources."
The undersigned entertains profound respect for the judgment of Lord Stanley, whenever His Lordship has an opportunity of judging for himself, or may judge upon fixed data. But in this instance the undersigned is bound to challenge his opinion.
(5)
The undersigned protests against the Bowring Praya, on the special grounds that it will neither conduce to the public convenience, nor embellish the City of Victoria.
Doubtless when the idea of a Quay or Praya first presented itself to Lord Stanley's mind, it was a mixed idea, made up of the useful and the ornamental. Lord Stanley, no doubt, likened it to that of the Quay or Mole which forms the Causeway at the Water-line of nearly every Seaport Town in England, with a range of buildings facing it and opening directly upon it, and generally known as the Marine Parade - such is certainly the ordinary view of it. But His Excellency can have hardly failed to have laid before Lord Stanley the extraordinary peculiarities of the present position, even though they involve the utter obliteration of every trace of the ornamental from His Excellency's scheme.
However, if by any oversight these peculiarities have not been exhibited before, it is desirable they should be laid before Her Majesty's Government even now, and they will perhaps stand out more prominently by force of the following contrast.
The undersigned would first observe that, as a Marine Lot Holder of this Colony, he has always advocated the principle of a Praya. With him it has ever been a simple question of ways and means, and strict limitation to useful ends. But against a Praya upon the prodigious scale laid down, and at the prodigious cost involved, the undersigned, on behalf of his fellow Lot Holders and fellow Colonists generally, has from the first protested, and to the last will protest - not merely on the grounds that the work is altogether superfluous, both in its Eastern and Western extensions, and partially so in its Central, but that even if in any degree necessary on the scale laid down, the expenditure would be ruinous in the present state of the Colonial Finances.
The undersigned now proceeds to shew what in his judgment is practicable and useful as regards a Praya, and what is for ever impracticable under the present construction of the Sea-shore Buildings.
In the opinion of the undersigned, a Mole or Esplanade of at least 200 feet in width, forming a continuous Causeway from Navy Bay to Wong-nei-cheong, and thus connecting the various straggling points of the town in one unbroken link at the water-line, was a scheme which ought to have been economized in the original projection of the City of Victoria. Such a Causeway would then have become what the Queen's Road is now, the main thoroughfare of the town, and the houses would have been built in conformity; that is to say, facing it, and the Harbour which it bounded. That original opportunity having been passed over, all is now reversed, and for ever irremediable as far as regards the question of embellishment. The Secretary of State will learn with surprise, if for the first time, that the houses are all, in familiar phrase, turned the wrong way for a Praya! Though all the principal buildings have an outlook seawards from their upper windows, yet their proper front is on the opposite or south side, as is the hall door and main entrance, and, unfortunately for the Praya's claims to the ornamental, all the domestic offices, such as Kitchens, Stabling, Compradores' and Godown-keepers' Quarters, all lie upon the north or proposed Praya side, and are built out to the very edge of its inner line. It is to be understood, that the undersigned writes of the Praya in front of Central Victoria, forming nine-tenths of the City, where, if at all, it must be an embellishment, and an available Promenade. It is thus clear that even the water-side resident of this City could never get to his Praya, unless through a Compound or back yard, nowhere less than 200 feet deep, containing his kitchens, stabling, &c., &c., thus exactly reversing, in that respect, the position of the water-side houses of the English or Continental seaport, which face the causeway, and grace it instead of burlesquing it. The undersigned affirms, that upon the whole water frontage of Victoria, there are only Seven buildings constructed in keeping with a Praya, namely, the Spring Gardens' residences, Messrs Lindsay's, Dent's, and Hunt & Co.'s, which face the
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(4)
His Excellency however was pleased to reconsider that Resolution, and to sus- pend it, no doubt through deference to the prohibition of the Secretary of State of any Expenditure whatsoever upon the Bowring Praya during the current year- meaning the financial year 1858-59. His Excellency supplied the place of that Resolution by the Ordinance now upon the Table, an Ordinance subserving it and conducting to it, and in the opinion of the undersigned merely the Resolution itself in another form.
On Monday, the 1st of November, His Excellency moved the second reading of the Ordinance, having previously advertised in the Government Gazette for Tenders for the construction of the Bowring Praya from Navy Bay to Wong-nei- cheong. As the undersigned could not understand how a Causeway formed upon nearly three miles and-a-half of granite sea wall, upon an artificial foundation ob- tained in many places out of 20 feet of water, with numerous wharves thrown out upon foundations still more difficult, could be constructed for £19,741.7.3, he asked for an Estimate of the work; whereupon, after debate, the second reading was ad- journed to Tuesday, the 16th November, to enable the Surveyor General to prepare the same.
Owing to His Excellency's lamented indisposition, coupled with certain tech- nical difficulties, that second reading against which this Protest stands for record, is now fixed for Tuesday, the 4th February next.
By order of Ilis Honour the Acting Governor in Council, on the 4th January instant, an abstract of the Surveyor General's Estimate was supplied to members, towards guiding their dealings with the Public Funds, and is now before the under- signed. It exhibits the following contrast:-His Excellency's Estimate lay at a point unknown, within £19,741.12.3; the Surveyor General's stands at £87,648. The undersigned takes leave to call the former sum His Excellency's Estimate, bear- ing in mind that unless the "available balance fully sufficed to construct the Praya," His Excellency was restrained, by the only instructions which he has disclosed to this Council, from entering upon the expenditure at all.
But this is not all. Not only does not the Surveyor General's Estimate provide one farthing of compensation for two Ship-building yards, the special value of which will be totally destroyed by the embankment of their launching-ways, but it does not include the cost of the work from the Parade Ground, to the east end of the Military Hospital-a space of some three-quarters of a mile. The whole of that space is Ordnance Ground, and it is presumed His Excellency excluded it from the Esti- mate, under the expectation that the Board of Ordnance at Home would carry out that section of the work. Should however the Board of Ordnance demur to expend- ing Imperial Funds on the "embellishment" of a remote dependency, the cost of the excepted section as well must ultimately devolve on the local resources, in which case that cost will be augmented to about £112,000, which may be taken as the actual price at a minimum of the bare work itself, apart from all claims for com- pensation for Lease-hold rights obliterated. The undersigned refuses at first sight to legislate for a measure which, if ever executed at all, must absorb a Capital equal to the entire Colonial Revenue for two years, such Capital being sunk irretrievably, and being utterly and for ever unproductive, and does solemnly protest accordingly. Fourth. The undersigned now attempts to exhibit how far the work con- templated by this Ordinance is worth the prodigious cost thus established.
Upon the Bowring Praya, Lord Stanley observes as follows,-
"The Bowring Praya or Quay is a work which may conduce to the public convenience, and which will doubtless embellish the City of Victoria; but it appears to Lord Stanley one which ought to be postponed until the Colony can defray it out of its own resources."
The undersigned entertains profound respect for the judgment of Lord Stanley, whenever His Lordship has an opportunity of judging for himself, or may judge upon fixed data. But in this instance the undersigned is bound to challenge his opinion.
(5)
The undersigned protests against the Bowring Praya, on the special grounds that it will neither conduce to the public convenience, nor embellish the City of Victoria.
Doubtless when the idea of a Quay or Praya first presented itself to Lord Stanley's mind, it was a mixed idea, made up of the useful and the ornamental. Lord Stanley, no doubt, likened it to that of the Quay or Mole which forms the Cause- way at the Water-line of nearly every Seaport Town in England, with a range of buildings facing it and opening directly upon it, and generally known as the Marine Parade such is certainly the ordinary view of it. But His Excellency can have hardly failed to have laid before Lord Stanley the extraordinary peculiarities of the present position, even though they involve the utter obliteration of every trace of the orna- mental from His Excellency's scheme.
However, if by any oversight these peculiarities have not been exhibited before, it is desirable they should be laid before Iler Majesty's Government even now, and they will perhaps stand out more prominently by force of the following contrast.
The undersigned would first observe that, as a Marine Lot Holder of this Colony, he has always advocated the principle of a Praya. With him it has ever been a simple question of ways and means, and strict limitation to useful ends. But against a Praya upon the prodigious scale laid down, and at the prodigious cost involved, the undersigned, on behalf of his fellow Lot Holders and fellow Colonists generally, has from the first protested, and to the last will protest--not merely on the grounds that the work is altogether superfluous, both in its Eastern and Western extensions, and partially so in its Central, but that even if in any degree necessary on the scale laid down, the expenditure would be ruinous in the present state of the Colonial Finances.
The undersigned now proceeds to shew what in his judgment is practicable and useful as regards a Praya, and what is for ever impracticable under the present construction of the Sea-shore Buildings.
In the opinion of the undersigned, a Mole or Esplanade of at least 200 feet in width, forming a continuous Causeway from Navy Bay to Wong-nei-cheong, and thus connecting the various straggling points of the town in one unbroken link at the water- line, was a scheme which ought to have been economized in the original projection of the City of Victoria. Such a Causeway would then have become what the Queen's Road is now, the main thoroughfare of the town, and the houses would have been built in conformity; that is to say, facing it, and the Harbour which it bounded. That original opportunity having been passed over, all is now reversed, and for ever irremediable as far as regards the question of embellishment. The Secretary of State will learn with surprise, if for the first time, that the houses are all, in familiar phrase, turned the wrong way for a Praya! Though all the principal buildings have an out-look seawards from their upper windows, yet their proper front is on the opposite or south side, as is the hall door and main entrance, and, unfortunately for the Praya's claims to the ornamental, all the domestic offices, such as Kitchens, Stabling, Compradores' and Godown-keepers' Quarters, all lie upon the north or proposed Praya side, and are built out to the very edge of its inner line. It is to be under- stood, that the undersigned writes of the Praya in front of Central Victoria, forming nine-tenths of the City, where, if at all, it must be an embellishment, and an avail- able Promenade. It is thus clear that even the water-side resident of this City could never get to his Praya, unless through a Compound or back yard, nowhere less than 200 feet deep, containing his kitchens, stabling, &c., &c., thus exactly reversing, in that respect, the position of the water-side houses of the English or Continental seaport, which face the causeway, and grace it instead of burlesquing it. The undersigned affirms, that upon the whole water frontage of Victoria, there are only Seven buildings constructed in keeping with a Praya, namely, the Spring Gardens' residences, Messrs Lindsay's, Dent's, and Hunt & Co.'s, which face the
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