CONTRACTS AND CONTRACTORS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 9465, 14 July 1891, Page 3

CONTRACTS AND CONTRACTORS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib,—ln your Saturday’s issue is published the report of a creditors’ meeting of a contractor for one of the sections of the Waimakiriri Gorge water-race. As this is not the first occasion during the construction of the above race, whereby some of the settlers in this district have lost heavily through the contractors nob having a price sufficient to carry out the work, it naturally brings us to the question—ls it right for our local bodies in all cases to accept the lowest tender, especially when they know (or ought to know) that the price is not more than half the amount necessary to complete the work, without ascertaining if the tenderer is in a position to withstand any loss ho may sustain ? The debtor in his evidence stated that when he took the contract he had no capital, but that in consequence of the ground being of a much harder nature than he expected, he lost Heavily. (Query. How can a man with nothing lose heavily ?) Who has to bear the loss P The men who did the work, and the storekeepers and farmers who supplied the necessaries for so doing. Well might the Chairman of the Council blandly smile when he told his guests after the luncheon at the supposed opening of the race that the total cost of the work would be only a trifle over eight thousand pounds. Judging from the prices at which not only the Selwyn County Council, but other of our local bodies let their work, the idea seems to prevail that it matters little who sinks so long as they swim.—l am, &e., Sheffield, July 13. W. T. POPPLE.