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Q.—Then you go as adviser?
A. Yes, but no one is bound to adopt my advice. When the work is completed all the documents are handed to me and I am to go and measure it, if by measure work; if by contract I take the specification and plans and go and measure the work, read the specification, which is my text, and see whether the work has been done according to the specification and plans. In the case of any deviation, if it arises from a lesser quantity in weight or measure, I note that, and it is made a deduction from the Contractor. If it be in excess I don't measure it at all. I take no notice of it, unless the Contractor can produce the written order for that excess. He gets no credit for excess without a written order. Anything not done is deducted. We have the power, if we think the work is not done according to specification, to make him pull it down and do it exactly, but of course we would not do that unless we thought it affected the stability of the building.
Q. How many Corporals would you keep continually on a work like the Sanitarium?
A. One man. He would be a man of the rank of Sergeant. But all these are trained men. Originally they are tradesmen, and then they are trained in the School of Military Engineering.
Q.-Then while the work is going on can the Contractor get advances of money in any way?
!
A. Yes, he gets monthly advances, say the contract is for £10,000 and takes ten months to complete, he would get £1,000 a month, less a reserve which is kept from him, of 25 per cent. That would be paid to him three months after the completion of the
contract.
done;
Q.-But you never pay him for more than he has done?
A.-No, nor as much. We always keep 25 per cent in hand until the contract is
then we pay
him in full.
Q.--When the work is finished how does he make out his bill? Does your depart-
ment give him any assistance?
A.-The Contractor is a man who can write English, and he has a measurement book exactly the same as the one I keep, paged and everything else, and he keeps time with me.
As I go on he writes in what I write. The books should correspond, because at the end of the day we compare them, and I have to sign his book and he has to sign mine, and it is from that he has to make out his bill. I hand mine to the clerks in the office and it becomes simply a question of calculating the money.
Q.--Does he make this book or do you supply it?
A. It is an ordinary book; they can be purchased.
Q.-Then the measurements and so forth having been adjusted, can he get his money at once, or has he to wait till the end of the month?
A.-He can get it the day the bill is signed.
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