CO-OPERATIVE CONTRACTS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXI, Issue 185, 30 July 1895, Page 2

CO-OPERATIVE CONTRACTS.

♦ TO IBS KDITOB. Sir, — I wish, through the columns of your paper, to expose an abuse of power, by the Engineer of the Wairau Road Board, in connection with the Onamalutu-Wakamarina Road, just completed. You are, no doubt, aware that the contracts on the above road were let under the co-operative rules. Now, the price at which the work was let in the first instance was so low that the men employed could not byanypossibility make wages; butone party rushed their contract through, no doubt very much to their own satisfaction, and apparently to the satisfaction of Mr Homes also, who appears to act for Mr Dobson, and then, to still further encourage them in the rushing process (I suppose), Mr Dobson takes advantage of a clause in the Co-operative Rules which gives despotic power to the officer in charge, and takes three chains off one party's contract, and some nine or ten chains off the contract of another party (which they had signed for), and lets them to the aforesaid " rushers " at an advance of fifteen shillings per chain upon the price signed for by the first parties. Now, sir, the three chains taken from the first party was undoubtedly the easiest and best paying of the whole ; and yet it is deliberately taken from them and given to a more favored party at, as stated above, an advance of 15s per chain upon the original price. In the other case the portion taken was certainly no worse than the re* mainder. Hoping you will insert the above for the benefit of others who are likely to come under Mr Dobson's " iron rule," — I am, etc, Eagle.