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13. As you will gather from the Resolution already quoted, the construction of the Road was to be carried out by the Government, the cost of it being defrayed as far as possible from the moneys collected and the Government undertaking not only to complete that section but to carry out by degrees other sections until a good road was constructed encircling the greater portion of the Island.

14. Under these circumstances, the Committee left it to the Government to take whatever steps they considered necessary towards carrying out the Road portion of the scheme. The matter was allowed to remain in abeyance until the arrival of Mr. ORMSBY, who had been appointed to succeed Mr. COOPER as Director of Public Works. A survey of the entire route was then undertaken, under Mr. ORMSBY's direction, and in August, 1898, that gentleman's report was forwarded for the Committee's consideration.

15. In his report the following passage occurs :---

I am strongly in favour of first constructing the Road between "Shaukiwan and Aberdeen and so completing a carriage road round the "Island, leaving the construction of the section round Mount Davis-(ie., "from Kennedy Town to Aberdeen)—for future consideration."

16. That was the first intimation which the Committee received of any proposal to deviate from the scheme which had been decided upon in April, 1897, 16 months previously.

17. The Committee wish here to point out that Mr. ORMSBY had then only been 10 months in the Colony and on the strength of that comparatively brief sojourn he proposed to upset a scheme which had been prepared by the Jubilee Committee (of which his predecessor, Mr. COOPER, was a member), and had received the approval of His Excellency the Governor, Sir WM. ROBINSON, and of yourself as Secretary of State. All the members of the Committee are men of standing and many of thein have spent much of their lives in the Colony.

18. The Committee, after considering Mr. ORMSBY's report, informed the Government that they considered themselves bound by Resolution No. 3, which I have already quoted in full, and did not therefore consider that they had power to expend the money collected on any other section of the road than that between Kennedy Town and Aberdeen.

19. At this period Major-General BLACK was administering the Government and it was not until after the arrival of His Excellency Sir HENRY BLAKE, G.C.M.G., that any

further communication was made to the Committee. Then, for the first time, in December, 1898, an extract from a letter of General BLACK's to His Excellency the Governor, in which Military objections were urged to the construction of the Road, was communicated to the Committee. General BLACK's letter, a copy of which is enclosed, is dated 2nd December, 1898.

20. To this the Committee replied in similar terms to those above mentioned and pointed out that early in 1897 the Government had undertaken with your approbation, and without objection on the part of the Military Authorities, to commence the Road forthwith and to gradually carry it on until completed.

21. The Committee were subsequently informed that the question of the construction of the proposed first section of the Road from Kennedy Town round Mount Davis had been reported upon by General BLACK and General GASCOIGNE, who were both opposed to it on Military grounds, and that His Excellency the Governor would not therefore feel justified in approving of it at present.

22. The Committee have no desire to even appear to question General GASCOIGNE'S opinion, but it is obvious that, for an Officer in his position to incur the responsibility, immediately upon his arrival in the Colony, of differing from his predecessor in office on such a question, is hardly to be expected.