BUYING CHEAPER PIPES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 386, 21 June 1928, Page 13

BUYING CHEAPER PIPES

DRAINAGE BOARD ATTACKS AGREEMENT CHRISTCHURCH CONTRACT rrcss Association. CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. The cost of drainage pipes A\-as again discussed by the Christchurch Drainage Board yesterday evening, as the result of letters from Mr. P. McSkimming. of the Homebush Pipe Company, Mr. W. Jeffrey. New Zealand manager for the Hume Pipe Company, and the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association. Mr. H. G. Livingstone said that the publication of the Homebush Company’s letter in the newspapers was evidently intended to lead the public to believe that the board Avas not justified in taking the action which it took at the last meeting, when it entered into a contract with an Auckland firm for the supply of £5,000 Avorth of pipes at a lower price than it had been paying in the last few years. The letter was very plausible and very misleading. He had never at any stage said that exploitation was taking place. The main idea was that the board was not getting pipes at the price at which it should have been getting them, and the agreement which he had read at the last meeting was the cause of the trouble. Mr. McSkimming had practically forced the Hume Pipe Company to sign the agreement, and that company was unable to make the smaller pipes. Air. McSkimming had the monopoly of the supply of pipes between Christchurch and the Bluff and had locked the Hume Pipe Company out of Dunedin. The whole position was most unsatisfactory After further discussion it was decided to reply to the Manufacturers’ Association saying that the board, after full consideration, had come to the conclusion that it was absolutely necessary to take the action it took at its previous meeting, but that in future the contracts for the supply of pipes Avould be let by tender, as had been done previously.