THE GREAT RAILWAY CONTRACTS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1139, 6 October 1871, Page 3

THE GREAT RAILWAY CONTRACTS.

A correspondent of the Auckland Evening News writes as follows;—Sir, Last year the public were dazzled by a great scheme of borrowing millions; this year they have a foretaste of the ease with which it may be spent. If we are not a people rolling in wealth, we ought to be, when we allow a minister to enter into arrangements somomentous as those between Messrs Bt'ogden and Mr Vogel. Can it be possible that Mr Vogel had full legalpower to make a bargain in the name and at the risk of the colony, winch not only involves the granting free of three millions of acres of land, but also an outlay for which the colony is to be liable to the amount of four milions sterling'/ Four million? sterling ! on which the reluctant contractors are entitled to a net profit of two hundred thousand pounds I Surely the Assembly contains a few members who have not got Vogel on the brain so hopelessly as to consent to such a proposal. Leaving out of the question all the points on 'vhich disputes might be raised, and supposing for argument's sake that the agreement was carried out without any hir.ch or difficulty, is not a bargain involving a net profit of ,£'200,000 to the contractor an extraordinary one 1 But no man who uses his faculties can for a moment believe that a complicated con tract could be carried out without dispute ; and the remedy, litigation, arbitration, or appeal to the legislature—all highly objectionable when the Government of the colony is one of the parties to the dispute, as in nine cases out of ten the public chest suffers. It was a simple act to vefev to arbitration the dispute between ;he Government and Mr Husby which resulted in an award of nearly forty thousand pounds, and some eighty thousand acre* of land, since compounded by a cash payment of £23,000. It was but the other day that the Wellington Provincial Government were engaged in a dispute with a contractor about a patent slip, and the public chest of the colony will eventually, if it has not already, have to bear the cost, And in a contract for millions no fear of there not being loopholes enough to let in disputes ending as usual in heavy awards against the colony.