SUB-CONTRACTS.

Auckland Star, Volume IV, Issue 1041, 22 May 1873, Page 2

SUB-CONTRACTS.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.) Sir, —It is very far from agreeable to us to intrude our business affairs upon the notice of the public, but as we have been most unjustly aspersed by correspondents in the newspapers, we cannot remain longer silent, for we do put some value on our position as contractors and employers of labour, for which we pay with promptitude. - In your issue of Bth May a paragraph appeared reflecting on Messrs Shaw and Donnelly, formerly subcontractors on our section of the Mercer railway. We cannot say who the author was, but the statements in it are perfectly correct. This was replied to on the 13th inst. by Mr Shaw, in a letter singular for its perversion of facts and untruthfulness. Messrs Shaw and Donnelly were not precluded from paying their men by not having been paid by us. They received several sums of money on account as our sub-contracfc-ors, which were not applied by them to its legitimate purpose, viz, paying their men, a dereliction of duty we cannot permit our name to be associated with. Their trumpery and false excuse about the settlement of measurements with us keeping them from paying their men may find its proper value when wa state that by the measurements of the Government Engineer they are (less the 25 per cent customarily withheld until completion of contract) positively a small sum of £12 13s in our debt as an over advance. The Messrs Shaw and Donnelly, three individuals, perhaps found that a small sub-contract could not keep them each doing " boss," and threw it up; but when they attempt to impose upon the public with a fictitious yarn about their being unpaid by us they ought to remember that fact says they are indebted not only to men for wages, but to a storekeeper at Makau ; also in a large sum of money for supplies, all of which they ought to have been able to meet with the money received from us. We are aware that Messrs Shaw and Donnelly have been making sympathising remarks aboutthe "poormen," but did they think of the "poor men" when they received from our Mr Thomas £25 on the sth April expressly to pay wages, and forgot to do it ? In closing we would wish to state that most of the men employed by them remain with us, and that it is our intention to take Buch precautionary measures in future as will protect the labourers, irrespective of the stability or instability of our sub-contractors. —We are, &c, O'Neill & Thomas.