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contract coming in, when I have known from my estimates they have tendered high, it has taken me a month or six weeks to get it to a proper figure. These fellows have been in day after day, and I have beaten them down $500 or $600.

Q. Hon. F. B. JOHNSON.--I suppose that is the same system as is adopted by the Government. They compare the tenders with the estimate, and if they are too high they don't accept them.

A. Yes, but their estimate is based on the scale of the Royal Engineers. They base their estimate on a liberal scale. I think you will always find, the Government tenders are below what they would work up to by schedule. It is not fair to take a big contract on schedule; it would be too high. A schedule is meant for odds and ends you cannot put in the specification, and for which you would naturally expect to pay a little more than if there was enough to ask a tender for. Basing their estimate on that, they get a high estimate for large contracts.

Q. Can you suggest any more efficient check than is placed on the department for stopping any bribery?

A. Yes. I think you should adopt a system similar to that of the Royal Engineers, have a man in Mr. FLEMING'S position, a qualified Surveyor, and let all moneys be paid on his certificate. I don't think a foreman ought to have anything to do with payment. The Surveyor General, or Assistant Surveyor General might constitute that man, and go round and visit all the works, because a man at a glance can see whether work is good or bad. There are things a man can cover up, or he may have saved a small quantity of lime, without your detecting it, but that is foreman's work. You can generally tell whether work is good or bad from half-an-hour's supervision, and you can tell within $500 the amount of work done.

Q.That is the Overseer?

A.-No; that is a professional man like Mr. FLEMING, Mr. PRICE, or Mr. BOWDLER. No payinent ought to be made except on the certificate of this man, and, if he is under the Surveyor General, the counter-signature of the Surveyor General. That is done to a certain extent. When I was in the department, for the Duddell Street work, and bits of Sea Wall, and the Causeway Bay Break-water, all certificates were granted by myself. On the Causeway Bay work I had no foreman for a time. The man who was there at first, who was worse than none, was dismissed. I used to visit the work two or three times a week, and as the work progressed I passed certificates for the amount of work I considered was done. On a job like that, where the contract was for $94,000, and every stone was under water at the commencement, I don't think men in the position of the Overseers of this department, who are simply educated by what they learn here in a few years, are in a position to say whether $5,000 or $10,000 worth of work

has been done.

Q-But I suppose in expensive works like that they have not exclusive control? A.-No; I think it is in small works, outstation work, and small road repairs that the Overseer has unquestionably the best opportunity, because there nobody is over him.