PORT CHALMERS WATER SUPPLY.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1990, 21 September 1869, Page 2

PORT CHALMERS WATER SUPPLY.

[To ike Editor of the Evening Star.)

Sih, —In your issue of the 16th, Mr G. Murray calls in question the statements in my letter which appeared on the I3th, and hogs to refer me to his letter of the Bth of March.

lii the absence of that document, my letter of the 13th was written entirely from a rec>l lection of the discussion that took place while Mr Murray’s proposal in his letter of the Bth March was being read to the Council ; but since his letter of the 16th has been published, calling upon me to defend my action in the matter, 1 have gone to the trouble of getting his letter which he refers me to, and afier perusing it I lind no such words as those mentioned, “taking debentures for the entire amount,” My authority for stating in my letter of the 13th that he would take them at 76, was based upon the reply m ven to a question bearing npo i that point durum the night of the discussion. He says I am wrong in stating that the supply was for George street and the shipping on y, “and that what he proposed to the Council to execute for the sum of 1.3090 included, in addition, pipes along a poition of Mount street, with a stand pipe ; pipes al ng a poition of Grey street to its junction with”Currie street, where another stand pipe was to he erected; and pipes along the Beach Hoad, past the Hid Hotel.” With reference to these additional pipes, which he mentions being includ'd, I hive no recollection of snob a statement having been made, nor do 1 find anything of the sort in his letter to the Council. Mr Murray may have mentioned the matter to one or two of the Council outside of the Council Hail, but one or two in rubers spoken to in that way does not constitute the Council. Again he states that I have omitted to state that the contract price was to include the expense of preparing plans and specifications for the entire works, and their superintendence during their construction, which any engineer would estimate at 5 per cent, or L4!)0 : this was to be done at my own cost. This, like other statements, originated outside, and was brought up by one of the Councillors verbally, which I recollect, but it was considered" by the Council valueless, as it would not be proper to appoint the contractor of such a work to he engineer, for the Council to superintend the s me ; —consequently 1 saw no reason in making mention of that item in my letter of the 13th. Trusting that these plain facts will satisfy Mr Murray upon the matter,—l am, &c., William Fakme, Port Chalmers, 18th September, 1869.