CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1815, 16 October 1884, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

To tse Editor,

Sir,—Will you kindly ulloiv me through the medium of your valuable paper to ask the Chairman of the County Council if he would be good enough to assure me publicly that lie was speaking seriously what he believed to bo true when he told me in the presence of the County Clerk and Mr Dawson tliat I had no reasonable grounds for complaint, and theu added " You know, Reese, you have only allowed yourself to get irritated, and fancy you have grievances, but really your grievances are purely imaginary," and than later on he said 'that what I complained about was done regularly (daily I think was the exact word) under the Public Works Department Sir, the more I think about these statements and the confident manner in whioh they were made, the more I am persuajfcd that there is something thoroughly bad in our County administration, either through a want of knowledge of how ,tho Government Department carry on public work, or through a total disregard for how these works are carried on, Let me ask him if he ever knew of a Government Inspector being retained in office after he beoarae a con tractor under the Public Works Department, or if be has.ever seen a plan of a bridge laid out for inspection by contractors and in an incomplete state, not shewing everything clearly that could be considered necessary for the contractors to make out the quantities for its construction, or has'he,..ever known of that department substituting one. bridge, with very much less material in it than the one tendered for .'without making a corresponding reduction in the tender? Or. does he' know of an instance of late years of an engineer stopping progress of works and insisting on something being done that was not shown on the plans and could not be provided for in the contract without compensating the contractors for the extra in proportion to the amount of his tender, and further, I would ask if he will deny me to prove the truth of the statement made in my letter of Monday last, re the understanding between himself and the engineer about doing the Waipoua bridge by day work f If he does, I will possibly publish the names of two gentlemen, who can, if they will, verify my statement to the letter. Iti conclusion, let me say that I hope the Chairman will see his way clear to'give a straight reply to each of these questions, Yours, &c, Alex, Refse, Contractor.