15.-Therefore the matter now stands thus: for the revised estimate of £233,107 a daily provision of 15 gallons per head may be had all the year round, instead of the allowance of 181 gallons in Winter and 30 gallons in Summer, which the original project provided at a cost of £302,147.
16.-More than ever impressed with the incalculable sanitary value of an abundant supply of water in a Chinese tropical city, I shrink from the res ponsability of reconunending to the Government any further curtailment of the allowance in providing for the future works.
17.-Once more I have the honour to point out the absolute necessity of a careful detail survey in order to arrive at the fixed cost of the proposed works. A preliminary survey such as the one made, merely serves to give a general idea or outline of the project as a whole, but it is valueless to a Committee of Ways and Means desirous to come at a certain fixed sum of money.
18.-Such a detail survey might or might not disclose a material reduction in the cost of carrying out the project by revealing a geological formation more favourable to work against, than that supposed to exist. In dealing with such a large sum as the one involved in the present question, I need scarcely point out that the least variation from the hypothesis which the engineer has had to assume in a preliminary reconnaissance, at once entails a modification of correlative mag- nitude in the Estimates.
19. Thus presuming that a detail survey for a reduced water supply such as the one adverted to in paragraph 15, entailing a total outlay estimated at £233,107, were to be set on hand, and that such a survey were to divulge an absence of rock along the whole line, it would at once be possible to effect an economy of say 20 per cent, or in other words of nearly £50,000. If, on the other hand, rock were discovered to prevail throughout, it might be necessary to supplement the es- timate by this amount.
20.-Therefore, it is quite clear that whether to involve itself in the outlay of carrying out a water supply, or whether by reason of its great cost to reject it. the Legislature must found its decision upon the result of a detail survey.
21.-I may here add that so far as I have been able to judge from superficial indications, the substratum favourable to a reduction of the estimate, but until I have effected a proper detail investigation, I carefully abstain from committing myself to any assertion in this matter.
22.-The cost of detail surveys will be about $2,500. It is the sum which I have now the honour to request may be voted in order to arrive at a satisfactory
solution.
23.-A further diminution of the now revised allowance of 15 gallons, would not be attended by the same wholesale reductions in the estimates which the first curtailments effected, because the pruning knife having in accordance with the wishes of His Excellency been mercilessly wielded, scarcely an item has been left upon which to retrench. This might perhaps be done by narrowing still further the water way of the channels, but the expedient is highly objectionable, and would bring about a repetition of the error committed at Pok-foo-lum in having a main too small to convey the supply which it was meant to serve.
24. In reference to the original project with its Winter allowance of 18 gallons, as submitted to His Excellency the Governor in my report of November last, I may add that it was based upon what was, after mature deliberation, deemed to be the requirements of a people by no means smaller consumers of water than our own metropolitan lower orders, whose quota averages 33 gallons for every man, woman and child inhabiting London and its suburbs. It is true that in England the bulk of this allowance is used for special and sanitary purposes, but it is none the less true that the sewerage of Victoria stands in similar need.
However, be this as it may, all arguments, however powerful and convincing, must succumb to expediency, and if the Colony is unable to afford a liberal supply of water, it must put up with a reduced provision. Under any circumstances, it is possible that the manner in which the whole subject has now been brought before the notice of His Excellency the Governor in Council may not have been unproductive of good.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
JOHN M. PRICE, Suveryor General,
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