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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
if the work of the Public Works Department in designing our more important schemes is appreciated—and still more, whether any outside firm would stand for the worry and constant changes to which the Public Works Department is subject, and to which any Government scheme must be subject?
Official and unofficial views,
unofficial views, technical and non-technical requirements, departmental suggestions have all to be dealt with and combined, only at the end sometimes to find that the money is short and that the work must be begun over again on a new foundation. Even where the money difficulty is absent, the problem remains; the plans of the Government Civil Hospital have run through the alphabet already to Letter J and finality is not yet in sight.
The Public Works Department might be glad enough to hand over all this trouble, but I doubt whether an outside firm would welcome it with the dovetailing of all the interests to be considered. It could be done of course, at a price; but private firms too have to allow in one way or another for salaries, passages, leave and something to take the place of pensions and it is difficult to attack the assertion that the Government Departmental method of Public Works Department work is the most economical.
The following summary of a report by Mr. Lowick of the Architectural Office, Public Works Department, is relevant; it is proposed to issue the whole report as a Sessional Paper in due
course-
"Comparison of Executive Charges and Cost of Building by (a) Architectural Office and (b) Private Architects.
"Executive Charges for work actually executed by this Office during the period January 1921-June 1930 show that they are about half of what they would have been if executed by private architects. It must also be remembered that the wor executed during this period, about half of which has been time of retrenchment, consists mainly of conparatively small works where the percentage cost by this Office but not by Private Architects is greater than in the case of really large works.
"Executive charges by the Architectural Office for the two large works about to be commenced-the new gaol and the new Government Civil Hospital-would be little more than one third of those by private architects. The charge of 9% applied in the calculation of cost by private architects is based upon the scale of charges authorized by the Royal Institute of British Architects and includes the preparation of bills of quantities and other items.
"Actual cost of building as distinct from executive charges-- the buildings considered cover the majority of those executed for
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