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The COLONIAL TREASUREN-Your Excel- lency, I rise to reply to the hou, member who represents the Chamber of Commerce. His chief complaint seems to be that the statement of accounts did not seem to be a proper balance sheet of the Colony from a business point of view. In auswer to that I may say that it ia | not intended to be such. It is simply intended to be a statement of the situation of various ac- counts taken by themselves. The general state- ment of the assets and liabilities of the Colony is, by the Secretary of tate's instructions, confined to Я cash balance, and is jn accordance with the form in US8 the Colony for many years, and I am rathor surprised at hearing criticism pou it so late in the day. In the matter of details of ex ebarges quoted by him I have to express a certain amount of regret at a statement being slightly deceiving. Footnotes 2 and 4 are the correct footuotes. Footnotes 1 and 3 to me are obviously in error, arising from the fact ! that the last £110,000 is taken at 1.9.
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The DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS-Sir, I will endeavour to reply to some of the points raised by my hon. friend opposito (Hon. Mr Howelt) with regard to publice works. In the first place, he referred to the ty phoon refuge and complained of the slow rate of progress. I cannot conceive from what quarter he obtain d his information, because it is imros- sible for any one to ascertain what the rate of progress on that work is. It is under water at the present moment and there is no portion visible. Therefore if he obtained his informa. tion from outside sources it must be mere talk without any knowledge of the state of work whatever. Isubmitted to this Council only a few months ago a diagram on which the progress made was shown, and that diagram showed sat- isfactory progress at that date. He referred to three years having elapsed since the work began, but the contract was only let barely one year ago. Now, the period allowed for the completion of the work under the contract is five years. In the matter, of the Post Office and the Law Couts he confined his remarks to a criticism of the designs. In the case of the Post Office the expedient of obtaining competitive designs was resorted to on the re- commendation of some of his anofficial! colleagues in byegone years. The recon- mendations were made so lone ago as 1804, and when the site of the building was finally decided apon, the recommendation was adopted and competitive designs wore invited. Those designs were submitted to the Public Works Committed and that Committee selected the one executed as the best Therefore, Sir, no blame attaches to the Government or anyone on this side of the House. With regard to the design of the new Law Courts he criticised that very severely, and asked who was responsible for it. That building was designed by one of the most eminent architects in England, who among other works executed the magnificent memorial which has been erected for Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace. I consider bim somewhat bold in venturing upon criticism of such an eminent architect, and question his qualifications for undertaking such a task. 1 am glad to hear he approved of the adding of an additional storey to the Post Office. That also was recommended by his unofficial colleagues on the Public Works Committee when the designs were under consideration. As for the question of letting it, that is a matter of policy I will not deal with in my reply. The Tytam Tuk work, Sir, was the next item, and he animadverted on the small sum put down
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in next year's estimate for it. In a work of that nature very extensive preliminary works have to be undertaken before anything can be done towards the execution of the work. When work is begun it is con. fined to the carrying out of excavations, which is one of the cheapest items of labour involved in it. That, Sir, is the reason why the amount put down is so small. When the work reaches the stage at which it admits of cement concrete boing deposited then a much larger amount will be required. The rext item to which my hou. friend referred was the question of establishing a park around tho rolf links at Fanling. That, no doubt, Sir, will receive very careful consideration. It will probably mean displacing a cortaia quantity of agricultural ground in order to devote it to this purpose, and that matter should receive careful cousideration. The dredging of the harbour, I understood the hon member to
say he considered unnecessary. As time goes on and the draught of steamers increases, I presume it will be a ommon necessity, i but at the present time, I agree with bim, there is no pressing necessity for it. It is, however, a work which in my opinion will have to be undertaken some day. With regard to the protection of the inlets of draius on the higher lovels, that, Sir, is a matter which will be very easily remedied, and I will see that it re- ceives attention. Then, Sir, we come to the charges against the administration of the Public Works Department generally, in which com plaints have been made of waste of time and money and many other matters. I think my i hon. friend might have confined himself to facts! when he was dealing with such matters. He said, if I heard him correctly, that the Las Courts occupied 13 years and tho Post Office 10 years.
Hou. Mr. HEWETT-About.
The DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS-AS; a matter of fact, provision for the Law Courts was first made in the estimates of 1900. I have not beside me at the moment the date on which the contract for the foundations was entered into, but it could not bave been before that date. We are in 1911, so the period occupied is somewhere about 11 years, instead of 13 years In the case of the Post Office the contract for the foundations was let in Novem ber, 1903, and the building bas been occupied for the past four or five months so the time ocen- pied in its construction was about 7 years, in- stead of 10. That is a difference of 25 per cent. In the case of the foundations of the Post Office the ship conveying timber for piles was lost on her way here. Her loss did not become known for some considerable time after it occurred, and some delay was caused in that way which was absolutely unavoidable. The hon. member rather galloped through the list of works of which be complained with regard to delay, and I could not follow him, but another matter to which he alluded was the filter-beds. That work, Sir. was carried out without the interruption of the supply of water to the city for a single hour, and anyone who knows anything of such a watter knows that it requires a great deal of trouble and care to accomplish. The work is not of a nature that could possibly be pushed He alluded also to te paving of Lee House Street. Unfortunately, we had to depend upor Some of his commercial brethran for the supply of the necessary paving blocks. They premised faithfully to supply them by a certain date, but did not fulfil their promise. I think, Sir, these are all the comments I have to make on the statement of the hon. member.
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