Sessional_Paper_1884 — Page 439

( 204 )

employed by the Royal Engineers, who are said to be a superior set of men, that the next best are those employed by the Government, and then a still worse class are employed by private architects. Would you be inclined to agree with that?

A.-Hardly, because I have had foremen from the Royal Engineers and I have had to turn them away.

Q.-But then you got their leavings?

A.-No, time-expired men, who have been highly recommended to me, but of course it is a question of individual merit. You can't apply it to a class. I think I have one or two foremen much better than anyone in the Royal Engineer Department

now, and some considerably worse.

Q.—Then the evidence seems to point to this, that it would seem to be almost. ` useless to attempt to detect individual instances of bribery amongst these foremen. All the witnesses we have examined seemed to be of opinion that to some extent there would always be more or less opportunities of bribery from Contractors to foremen, but that it is possible to strike at the root of the practice by taking away from the foremen (on this point there has a singular unanimity of opinion) the power of measuring work and recommending payments. All of the witnesses without exception recommended that a skilled measurer should be employed, a well-paid man whom you could trust, whọ should have little or nothing else to do than to measure work and certify to the amount of work that had been done, and to give the Chinese Contractors a document which would either form their bill or the basis of their bill. Could you come into that re-

commendation at all?

A.-I am fully alive to the importance of a suggestion of that kind, and I have often thought how it could be accomplished. The difficulty which besets the scheme is that work is very often excavation, laying of foundations, and all that is very often finished and completed before there would be any opportunity of getting a man to go and verify it, especially in connection with tidal work; an excavation is made, a founda- tion laid, and the thing has to be filled in. I think the proper remedy would be to get honest men. I think you are almost entirely dependent on the honesty of the indivi- duals you employ in contracts. If you had a Clerk of Works to measure every work carried out under the supervision of these other men, he would be very much in their power. He could not measure every hole that is dug, every stone that is laid; he could. not examine the under-surface of masonry to see whether fine dressed or rough-dressed stone was used; he would not be able to see whether pure cement, or mortar, or lime and sand had been used in the crannies. I think it would work back to its present position, and you would have to employ more men to some extent without obtaining any advantage. I am fully alive to the importance of not relying on the man who carries out the work for the passing of the bill, because if that could be done you would strike at the very root of the possibility of corruption, you would exercise a check over the man in charge of the work, and it would make it more difficult for him to connive with the Contractor, but in practice opportunities would be found of getting round that.