COLONIAL CEMENT.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9738, 28 May 1897, Page 5

COLONIAL CEMENT.

The following letter, with tests, has been addressed by the President of the Industrial Association to the Chairman of the Works Committee of the City Counoil. The Association appointed a Sub-Committee to wait on the Works Committee with a view to calling attention to the fact that tenders for English cement had been accepted in preference to the colonial. The latter, it was pointed out, was not only cheaper but had been satisfactorily used in the works of the city for some years. With a view to showing the comparative quality of the English and colonial cements under'test, Professor Scott, of Canterbury College, instituted a series,' and the results are given in the letter. The following is the letter :— "To the Chairman of the Works Committee.

** The Industrial Association beg to acknowledge receipt of a letter from the City Surveyor under date of thß 12th inst., addressed to the President, a copy of which we enclose. The letter was brought before the Committee at their meeting on the 29th April. The Committee were unanimous in' feeling that thedetter of the City Surveyor in regard to the use of- colonial cement was not the kind they would imve expected from a public officer, as no reason except the personal bias of the Surveyor was alleged tor the change in the City Council work from colonial to imported cement; and a Sub-Committee was requested to embody the expressed feeling of the whole Committee in a letter of reply.. We-do not expect that a change can be made in an existing con* tract; out we do protest against the change having been made for. such insufficient reasons without any tests of a public character having been made, and we trust that in future the City Council will see that before good colonial productions are thrown on one Biqfc, and imported ones substituted, that proper public, tests of the relative qualities of each will be made. " Whilst the primary object of the Industrial Association ia to watch the, interest of colonial industries, > the members of ; the Committee as ratepayers Of the City protest against the waste of public money involved by accepting the higher tender for imported cement. "At foot we give tests that have been made of the colonial cement, rejected by the City Surveyor, by reliable and unprejudiced professional men. In face of these, the Association cannot accept the unsupported preference of one individual for one special brand of cement as a conclusive test that that is the only cement fit to be used on city work. Even if the City Surveyor's experience " had not" covered the use of colonial cement, the use of it by Government and municipal bodies all over New Zealand should have led him to make careful enquiries, before taking action as a public officer, to replace a colonially manufactured article by an imported one. "So far as the Committee is aware, no complaints have been made of the quality of colonial cement during its use for many years in all kinds of City Council work. " Where the interest of all colonial institutions lie in the direction of using the locally produced articles, it is the opinion of .this Association that the want of personal knowledge -by the ■ Christchurch City Surveyor of an article so generally used as colonial cement should have been no bar to its use by the City Council of Christchurch, especially as ample proofs haye been given that it is for all purposes as good as, and for many purposes better, than the imported article. " I am, sir, " Yours respectfully, "J. R. Trm-os, President." The following- are the comparative tests, tension and compression, made hy. the Lyttelton Harbour Board and Professor Scott compared with those made by Mr D. R. Clark in his work, "Rules, Tables and Data." Tension tests :—Auckland—7 days, 4321bs per square inch; 28 days. 514; 3 months, 670; do, 7 days, 469. Dunedin— 7 days, 307; 28 days, 008 ; 3 months, 657; 6 months, 687; do, 7 days, 408; 28 days, 672. ' days, 440; 28 days, 561; 3 months, 606; dp, 7 days, 363; 28 days, 416 *, 6 months, 525. ~._r . The <„mproßsk— tests areW-Auckland-—7 days, 1.936. Duuedin—7 days, .902; 28 day 5.1.266; 3 months, 2.664; 6 months, 3.447* English—3 months, 1.7 j 9 months,