THE HARBOR BOARD.

Evening Star, Issue 4318, 29 December 1876, Page 4

THE HARBOR BOARD.

The following protest was forwarded to the Harbor Board at its last sitting, respecting the calling again for tenders for harbor works :

Dunedin, December 27, 1876. -I Lope you will pardon me for pointing out to you that my price for dredging and reclamation minus the half-tide wall, method No. 4, could have easily been arrived at by the members of the Board. I have further to point out to you what I consider an injustice to nvyßelf, namely, that you should ask a firm to tender for No. 4 method when they did not previously tender for same, more especially you having made the prices public. Not only the bulk sum did you make public for the various schemes, but you read out in the Board-room the schedules. 1 think you will agree with me that such a course as you have adopted is entirely without precedents, and more especially to ask a firm to send in a price for No. 4 method, while the tenders of other contractors had been divulged and made public. I have yet to learn that this is a fair course of action I can well remember when I tendered for the first portion of wharf, immediately after the formation of the Harbor Board's in excluding my tender because it was too late, one member asking from another member, who has had more experience in such matters, the course adopted with late tenders, and his reply was {see report of paper-) that the course was to exclude them, as it very often happened that contractors told each other their prices shortly after the tenders were sent in, and it might have a tendency to lead another contractor to send in a lower price. These tenders had not been opened; therefore the prises were not divulged. I dil not complain of the course taken by your Board.

Another instance—and I could cite many, but will confine myself to one : two contractors waited lately on the Executive Minister for Otago (the hon. Geo. M'Leau) complaining that due publicity had not been given in the public prints for an important work—it had only appeared once or twic« in the Provincial 'Gazette'—and his reply was : " Seeing that Ihaveopenedthetenders, it would scarcely be fair to re-advertise it." The prices of contractors—there were only two —had not been published. I have no objection at any time to tender fairly and bond fide on my merits, but I emphatically protest against you receiving a tender for No. 4 method from a party who did not tender previously for it, after other contractors' prices have been made public property ; and I cha lenge the Board to point out any siu-ilar case. I trust the Board will fairly view this letter, as I hold that contractors have as legitimate a right to be protected as any other body of professional men.—l am, &c. (signed) D. Pkoudkoot.