LETTERS TO TIE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2402, 6 March 1915, Page 8

LETTERS TO TIE EDITOR

PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS AND GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS.

. Sir, —The tedious delay which has set m over the erection, of the Parliamentary Buildings is said to be due to the marble iudicated to contractors from Sandy Bay not proving of a quality satisfactory to the inspector. The recurrence of disputes and breakdown of Government contractors is ly frequont, suggesting that there mu6t be something wrong, which needs to be looked into.

11l this case the Department stunned its responsibility when it included NewZealand marble in its specification. Surely tlie responsible officers ought to have first known whether suitable marble really existed in tho Sandy Bay quarry or elsewhere in Now Zealand. If they had not determined this, and it is found that no reliable quarry exists then the Department was misleading in specifying marble as an acceptable 6tone. No responsible practising architect would do the like on behalf of a private employer. He'would know that a breakdown was certain which would bring himself into trouble and discredit. It is not the business of a contractor to prospect for marble and to incur great expense to develop any outcrop on chance. Yet tho Government accepts tenders m presence of such uncertainties. Confidence lingers in a belief that in Government hands .all will prove right and contractors in consequence get enmeshed and ruined, but under this system the erection of public buildings gets grievously delayed, to the discredit of Ministers who permit the like, and the Department which has not had courage to refuse to include a material of the quality and possible supply of which it had not certain knowledge. Ultimately, no doubt, and after long delay such a contract will somehow be finished, but it will be at an unmentionable cost. —I am, etc., A CONTRACTOR WHO DID NOT TENDER, ■Wellington, March 4. ROYAL CHORAL SOCIETY.

OFFICIAL DENIAL. (To the Editor.) Sir, —At a meeting held by the committee of tlie above society last evening I was instructed to make an official denial of Dr. Fyffe's statement that sectarian influences had interfered with the appointment of a conductor to this society. This question has not once been raised, and interference of this kind; will not be tolerated under any consideration. It should be sufficient to say that as evidence _ of the unsectarian nature of our society, our mem-: bership includes many Roman Catholics. Dr. Fyffe has not the slightest cause nor justification for making_ such a statement, and I trust in the interest and well-being of the society that this official contradiction will Temove all doubt on the point.—l am, etc., R. T. CALDOW, Chairman. March 6, 191 S.