1.—7.

48

be due you for the revised plans, it would be better that I should give you a cheque for the amount at our final interview. If you cannot afford me the information asked for in my letter of the 4th, possibly you might include it in your report to the Board. Yours faithfully, Sir John Coode, C.8., Westminster. J E. Kees.

(No. 9.) —Sir John Coode to Mr. J R. Rees. Deae Sic, — 5, Westminster Chambers, London, S.W., 17th March, 1880. Referring to your letter of the sth, at hand only this morning, enclosed with yours of the 16th, I could not, under any circumstances, consent to submit to you for settlement my professional account for the preparation of my revised design and working drawings, &c, in connection with these works; indeed the time has not yet arrived for framing such an account, seeing that the detailed drawings of the special machines and plant have yet to be completed, although the general character and sketches for the machine have been determined. These will now be forwarded and finished. You will remember that I decided some weeks since (you concurring) that this was the best mode of procedure in the interests of the Commissioners. In view of all the circumstances of the case I have now decided, after full consideration, to Bend the drawings, specification, report, and particulars of estimate direct to the Commissioners, feeling, as I do, that by the adoption of this course their interests will not suffer in any degree, whilst, at the same time, my position in the matter would be put upon a proper basis, which at the present moment is certainly not the case, having regard to your application for my professional account at this stage of the business, as appears by your letter of the sth instant, to hand this morning. The drawings will therefore be despatched from Southampton by the P and O. steamer sailing to-morrow,* the parcel being set forward this evening. From the sketch drawing, which I showed you some weeks since, you are already acquainted with the general mode of construction lam recommending the Commissioners to adopt; nevertheless, as you may wish to consider your working arrangements for carrying out my recommendations during the voyage to the colony, I am having tracings prepared of such of the drawings as will serve this purpose, and these will be completed in time to post to you on Friday evening at Plymouth, care of the Orient Steam Navigation Company's agent there, so that you will doubtless receive them in good time on Saturday. Yours faithfully, J R. Rees, Esq., Cannon Street Hotel. John Coode. * Since the above was written it has come to my knowledge that, in consequence of alterations by the P and O. Company, the steamer does not leave Southampton until to-day.—J Coode. —19th March, 1880.

Sir John Coode to the Chaieman of the New Plymouth Haeboub Boaed. Sib, — 5, Westminster Chambers, London, S.W., 25th March, 1880. I have to acknowledge the receipt of your telegram of the 20th (Saturday), which was delivered here on the 22nd, and was then forwarded to and received by me in the country on the following day. It reads as follows : " Please let Rees see copies of plans." I could, of course, have no objection whatever to offer to Mr. Rees seeing my office copies of the plans, tbe originals of which were sent to you on the I7th instant, but, on the contrary, as explained in my letter to him of tbe same date (copy of which has been forwarded to you), I have furnished for his use and reference tracings of four of the sheets which show more particularly the details of the work. These tracings were prepared only just in time to send to Mr. Rees, to Plymouth, where I understood he was to join the " Aconcagua," which sailed from that port on the 20th instant. They were intended for his reference during the voyage, in order that he might consider the working arrangements to be undertaken upon his return. But it appears that after going to Plymouth he decided to postpone his departure, and, upon sending him a letter to the Cannon Street Hotel, London, telling him of the receipt of the Commissioners' telegram, I find he has returned there. I shall have to address to you a further letter upon the subject of the above at a later date. I have, &c, The Chairman of the New Plymouth Harbour Board. John Coode.

Sir John Coode to the Chaibman of the New Plymouth Haeboue Boaed. Sic, — 5, Westminster Chambers, London, S.W., 2nd April, 1880. Adverting to previous correspondence, and more especially to my letter to you of the 19th ultimo, with its enclosures, I beg now to forward, for the information of the Board, copies of further letters from and to Mr. Rees, and have to submit the following remarks thereon : —■ As to Mr. Rees's letter of the 20th ultimo I have to observe: (1.) With regard to Mr. Rees's proposal to pay my professional account on the plea of saving exchange on the colony, I regard this as an altogether frivolous and insufficient ground for adopting such an unusual and unwarrantable course. (2.) With regard to Mr. Rees's mission to England, I may say that, according to the Board's letter addressed to myself, the object of this was stated in the following terms : "The Board find local difficulties in carrying out your plan in its entirety, and, as they deem it of importance that you should have full information before you to enable you to form an opinion thereon, they have resolved to send Mr. Rees to give you the benefit of his local information," adding that " advantage might be taken of Mr. Rees's visit to England to select the necessary plant for carrying on the work; and the Board will esteem it a great favour if you will facilitate his action in this matter." It should be explained that the special plant for such works cannot be found in the market, and therefore cannot be " selected," but must, in all such cases, be made to order for the particular works on which it is to be employed. (3.) As to his having " patiently waited week after week "to receive the plans from me, and with reference to what he designates as his " long detention in this country," I feel it necessary to say that, after having heard Mr. Rees's account of the character and sizes of Btone available, and having definitely decided what course to adopt, and prepared the preliminary sketches, and framed an approximate estimate of the cost of a work in concrete, as the first step towards the preparation of the complete designs, I showed these sketches to Mr. Rees, and informed him very early in February that the cost, as nearly as could then be seen, would be somewhere about £280,000. I also intimated to Mr. Rees that I had it in contemplation to send a telegram to this effect to the Board, in order to ascertain whether, in view of this large increase in cost, it would be their wish that the arrangements should be proceeded with for obtaining the special plant, cement, &c. Mr. Rees doubted the utility of Bending such a telegram, and expressed himself as confident that the Board would hesitate to authorize the ordering of the special plant until the revised drawings had been before the G-overnor in Council, and had been sanctioned (see reply to question 93) ; indeed, he added, "it would be scarcely legal for the Board to do so." He stated further that the Board would much prefer that he should not return to the colony until the plans were completed. As this seemed to be reasonable, I acquiesced in this arrangement. Not a day has been lost in the preparation of the documents since the matter was taken up in my office : it was proceeded with at the earliest practicable moment, after Mr. Rees's arrival in England, consistent with the pressure of other urgent professional work in hand at that time. (4.) As to his statement that the designing of the special plant was to be left in my hands on his embarkation to New Zealand, " unless in the meantime I [he] received the instructions to complete the purchase," I regret to be obliged to say that no qualification or reservation whatever of the kind was made or even suggested at the time by Mr. Rees. I could not for a moment have been a party to any such qualified arrangement, as the Board will at once understand on reference to the distinct and well-considered advice, founded on lengthened and varied experience, which I have given on this head in my report of the 17th ultimo. (5.) What the " many difficulties " may be to which Mr. Rees adverts I am at a loss to understand : none have been interposed by me, and, if he has encountered any such in any other quarter, I cannot doubt that they might have been readily overcome if he had brought them to my notice; but I am constrained to say that, from the very commencement of his interviews with me up to the present time, Mr. Rees has been most reticent in the way of furnishing particulars with reference to his action in repect of procuring the plant, and has not exhibited such frankness in this matter as I should have expected from him, as Resident Engineer, to me, as designer of the works. (6.) With regard to the concluding paragraph of Mr. Rees's letter of the 20th ultimo, dated from Plymouth, in which he states that he had " already arranged for the shipment of the whole of the plant," I desire to point out that the copies of the drawings which I furnished to Mr. Rees were handed to him at Plymouth on the 20th, the day his said letter was written. It seems clear therefore that, as, according to Mr. Reeß'e statement, the plant was ordered on the same day that the drawings of the revised design were received by him, he