CO129-627-2 Fertilizer factory new territories- contains drawings 1-12-1950 - 31-1-1952 — Page 97

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in our telegram No. 842 that this was being done and that Brunt, having no staff of his own, was negotiating to ally himself to a firm of consultants and asked the Governor whether he wanted the consultants engaged on Hong Kong's behalf.

S.

In reply (telegram No.790) we were informed that you did not desire consultants to be engaged and that all that was required of Brunt was that he should be retained as an employee for a month or two until he would elaborate the scheme only so far as it is absolutely necessary for consideration as a Colonial Development and Welfare project. We informed Brunt of this and went on to say that "From Mr. Barnett's letter of the 19th June it appears that you may already have been informed of the details necessary for a scheme to be considered as a C.D. and W. project" and we elaborated slightly on the details required - description of the scheme and so forth. Needless to say, Brunt did not like this much and wrote us back a tart letter including the following summary of his views - "As my position in relation to the Government of Hong Kong is that of a consulting engineer, I do not understand the reference to a desire not to engage consultants. My view is that, if my position can be recognised, the real matters for discussion are the amount of work involved in preparing the scheme for consideration by the Colonial Development organisation and the appropriate terms for the execution of this work".

6.

X

The position as we see it is now as follows:-

(1) So far as we are concerned Brunt has been treated

throughout as a salaried employee of the Hong Kong Government

(11) But he has good grounds for thinking that he is to be re-employed as a consultant, 1.e. on percentage rates.

(111) He is not a member of the Association of Consulting

Engineers. While the firm with which he seeks to ally himself does belong to that Association, it is not a firm which the Crown Agents would have recommended Hong Kong to employ had we been consulted in the normal way?

(iv) There are certain obvious contradictions between

Hong Kong Saving No.744 of the 29th June and Hong Kong Telegram No. 790 of the 22nd July.

(v) So far as we can see, without being engineers,

Brunt has done little to earn his salary since he came home, except to 'plug' himself as a consultant.

We have seen Brunt again and told him to let us know

(a) how much assistance in the way of draftsmen etc. he

wants to enable him to set out his scheme for consideration as a C.D. and W. project;

(b) how much this will cost and what he thinks he ought

to be paid.

When we have his answer we will write to Hong Kong officially asking whether Brunt's terms should be accepted.

/The