TOWN DITION. Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1887.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXI, Issue 311, 21 October 1887, Page 2

TOWN DITION. Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1887.

The question of awarding the prizes offered by the City Counoil for the two best designs for tho drainage of the town will be considered at a mee ing — open ( o the public — to be held tbis evening-. Mr Akersten haa addressed to us a long letter on the subject, in which ho adopts what appears to us, and must appear to most people, to be an extraordinary course. The first idea of the Council was to submit the deigns to two experts, but on consideration it was decided that one would be sufficient, and that a saving of expense would be effeotdd by dispensing with the second one. The Counoil then unanimously agreed to refer the question to Mr Hay for his decision, having, we may fairly presume, quite satisfied themselves as to his qualifications, but now after he has been employed and given his verdict Cr Akersten calls in question his competency to give an opinion, stating that "he is not known as a sanitary Engineer," and that " if he has had practical experience in sanitary drainage it cannot be long experience." Surely it was Cr Akersten's business to ascertain this before. To wait until the decision is given, and then to turn round npon the expert specially engaged to report and tell him that he is not competent to perform that which he had undertaken, when there was every opportunity of ascertaining his qualifications beforehand, is, we will undertake to say, unheard of conduct on tbe part of a public body. Are we to infer that the same charge would have been laid against the most eminent sanitary engineer if he and Cr Akersten had chanced to disagree npon the selection of a design ? It appears to us, as we have said before, that the Council have fully committed themselves. They called in^Mr Hay to report upon the respective merits of the plans aud he bas done so and told them whioh, in his opinion, are entitled to the two firat prizes. Thsy em> ployed Mr Hay because they did oot feel themselves competent to be the judges, and yet they— or some of them -do consider that they are competent to say that his decision is wrong. That the two competitors in whose favor Mr Hay has pronounced are entitled to the prizes offered seems to us beyond all question, and we cannot see how the Council are to refuse them. A great deal has been mado of Mr Hi-y's ■statement tbat "no doubt alterations and additions will be necessary" if " C'Est lei's " des gn is adopted, but is ib not the experience of every engineer that when details come to be worked out alterations ate frequently, if not invariably, found to ben ■ cessary even in tho simplest of schemes? Had tbo 'alterations and additions " spoken of been at all of « Berious character, itis not at all likely that Mr Hay would have recommended the design as the best. The Councillors will doubtless have thought the matter out carefully, and with every desire to do justice to all parties, before they meet this evening to record their final decision. How that decision can be other than to award the prizes as recommended by their unanimously appointed professional adviser we must confess our inability to understand.