South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, MARCH 2 1893.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7082, 2 March 1893, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, MARCH 2 1893.

The Tirnaru Harbour Board have a tough task before them to get the Lobnitz contract straightened out. The board determined to get a tug-dredge from Home. Specifications were drawn up by I the engineer and mailed to Mr John Darling, with instructions to act for the board and call for tenders for a contract on those specifications. Mr Darling called for tenders, but also, as the result of his experience, recommended certain alterations in the dimensions of the vessel, which recommendation the board decided to adopt. Tenders were received as called for, among them one from Lobuitz and Co., and with it certain other recommendations involving other departures from the original specifications. These alterations the board also adopted. The|board were now advised that the original specifications had been ao largely varied, that in their new form they could not be said to have been legally adopted by the board, and that they should be formally adopted as amended, and fresh tenders called for. This was done, and Lobnitz and Co. were the successful tenderers. The next step was to got a contract signed by both parties. The Board’s engineer prepared specifications to include all adopted alterations, and these were signed avtd sealed for the Board and sent Horae. Mr Darling, acting on behalf of the Board at Home, —to comply with the law binding the Board —ought to have prepared a similar set of specifications by altering the old ones sufficiently, or have waited for a copy from the colony, and then got Lobnitz and Co, to sign it as expressing their part of the contract, it appears that Mr Darling did not do this, but—the original specifications sent him having been altered a good deal—seems to have adopted a suggestion of the tenderers that they should furnish a clean set of specifications. At all events they did furnish a set, Mr Darling adopted j them, Lobnitz and Co. signed a contract , based on those specifications, and set to work to carry out the contract. When the firm’s specifications reached the board, the two members who were charged to see to the contract signing found them different from those they had signed, sealed and sent Home. They consulted the Board’s solicitors, and were advised that they must —to keep wjithin the law insist upon the Board’s specifications being signed by the contractor and adhered to as the basis of the contract. Mr Darling was cabled to this effect, and he replies that Lobnitz and Co. will not sign the Board’s specifications ; the Board must sign the 'firm’s. And in the meantime the firm have been at work on the vessel, and must have made considerable progress with it. This is the state of case as we understand it. How can the Board get out of the muddle 'I The Board have probably been committed to the contract by their agent, according to the English law, while they hkvo not got a proper contract according to the New Zealand law. We have not the slightest doubt that the boat will bo none the worse for the defect in the contract, but that defect ought to be remedied somehow.