The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1884. COLONIAL CONTRACTORS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1606, 11 February 1884, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1884. COLONIAL CONTRACTORS.

There arc ''contractota" and "contractors." Sonic arc extremely estimable andielable men, who me nscliil members of the community, others are simply " birds of prey." Wo have recently had an instance on. a large scale in this district of the latter. A firm took a large government contract at a low price—so low a one that it was evident from the outset that someone must suffer. If we estimate the loss on this contract at 45,000 we believe that we shall not be far out of the mark. Now the question arises, assuming that £5,000 is to be lost, who are to be the losers 1 It the contractors wero men of means the loss would very properly fall on them, As a rule, men of means do not take large contracts twenty or thirty per cent, below the market price, and it has already transpired that in this particular case the contractors were not men of means, The loss therefore falls eithor on the Government, the securities of the contractors, or. the creditors of the contractors, TheGovernmenthavehadalong experience in dealing with impecunious contractors, and it conducts its public works under conditions which in most instances protect it from loss. It 'may in the present case possibly lose a little by being unable to complete the contract it has taken over out of the balance of the contract money which it holds, but it is very unlikely to be bit to any considerable extent. The creditors of the contractors are really the men who in this instance contribute the five thousand pounds or so that must be lost. These creditors are the tradesmen who supplied the contractors with stores and material, and the laborers on the job, Another peculiarity which is occasionally noticeable in contractors was observable in this case. When the contractors appeared to he getting into difficulties, to be realising that their capital was insufficient for their undertaking, what did they do 1 They took another contract and increased their liabilities, brought in a second crop of creditors to balance the first, and when this did not suffice they took a third contract to make confusion worse confounded, It seems to us to be little less than 'criminal, when a man finds he has insufficient capital for one undertaking, to deliberately treble his ventures in the wild hope of one contract in some way retrieving another, The result is simply three sets of creditors instead of one, and what few assets there might be with one setofcreditorsmust necessarily be dissolved with three, Storekeepers and workmen have been bit over and over again by contractors 'dodges, It is about time that % learnt to din-

tinguish between trustworthy and untrustworthy men. Censure'has been cast in this district oil the Government as if tho Public Works Department were the cause of the losses sustained by tradesmen and others, With unscrupulous contractors in the field, one has not to look far for the real and only cause of the trouble that has arisen, and it is ridiculous in the extreme to attribute it to an 'experienced Public Works Department which is bound to protect the public purse.