THE ELECTRIC TRAMWAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12027, 25 July 1902, Page 6

THE ELECTRIC TRAMWAYS.

THE QUESTION OF PENALTIES.

STATEMENT BY THE TRAMWAY

COMPANY.

At last night's meeting of the Auckland City Council the following letter from Mr. P. M. Hansen, of the Auckland Electric Tramway's Company Limited, was read: —

" I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of the notice informing my company that it is your intention to avail yourselves of certain powers and remedies purporting to be vested in and conferred upon the body corporate called the Mayor, councillors and citizens of the city of Auckland, under the provisions' of a certain deed of delegation dated June 28, 1900, made between the said body corporate and my company and to enforce payment by my company of penalties for and in respect, of certain alleged breaches, neglects and defaults by my company set out in the said notice. In reply 1 would respectfully state that, under the provisions of the said deed of delegation, my company is not liable to pay such penalties, inasmuch as (amongst other things) such alleged breaches, neglects and defaults mentioned in your notice, if they have occurred, are owing to causes and circumstances beyond my company's control, and any time thus lost in the construction and completion of the electric, tramways will, by virtue of the said deed, require to bo added to the time limits specified for the construction and completion of the electric tramways, and such time limits will require to be correspondingly and proportionately extended. In the following I will give you some of the most important causes on account of winch the progress and completion of our works wero delayed, and which, as you will see, were quite beyond my company's control: — 1. In my letter dated May 14, 1901, addressed to you, I submitted to you certain delays which had occurred beyond my company's control amounting to about three months. Adding to this the fact that the s.s. Cereda, which brought the first shipment of rails, arrived about a fortnight overdue, mv company claims that fully three months have to be added to our contract time. 2. The steel framework, for the erection of the power station, was due to arrive in Auckland early this year, but owinn to a railway strike in Pennsylvania the manufacturers were unable to get same away from their works for some considerable time, which caused a delay of about three months. In addition to this there has been a delay of a further month in the receipt of this material owing to the steamer Hans arriving some 30 days overdue at this port. 3. On February 27, 1902, a fire occurred in our general contractors' store in Gore-street, which destroyed materials to be used in the construction of the tramways, valued at £1151. All of the materials which were destroyed, and much that were damaged, were ordered b}' cable to be duplicated at once. Owing, however, to the impossibility of getting such goods immediately from stock, and the fact that the shipment of same takes from two to three months from England or America, we have only a few. days ago received by the s.s. Hafis the greater part of the materials replacing those destroyed or damaged in the fire. . We may, therefore, fairly claim that the time elapsing between the destruction of the goods and the replacing of same amounts to a delay beyond my company's control of some four months.' 4. The contract for. paying my company's portion of Queen-street with wood blocks was let to Messrs. J. G. White and Co., Limited, and that firm was prepared to take the work in hand soon after their representative's arrival here in Juno, 1901. However, as you are aware, gentlemen, .it was at your sole desire that my company's contract for wood-paving was changed, and asphalt paving substituted in its place. This change was not finally settled before January of this year, and for this reason the Neuchatel Ashphalte Company was apparently unable to commence this work before the beginning of March last. For this ..reason we claim that a delay of something like six months was occasioned, but as this work in question lias yet to be completed the exact period of delay cannot be definitely stated at present. Even if the other delays beyond my company's control mentioned herein had not taken place, and the entire work of constructing and equipping the tramways had been completed by June 1 last, it would have been impossible to operate electrically any portion of the system on that' date, on account of the uncompleted state of tho i Queen-streefc work; and even at the present date, and for some time to come, it will be impossible to operate any portion of the system under • construction electrically on account of such uncompleted state of Queenstreet. 5. Another cause of delay beyond my company's control proved to be the bad weather. Messrs. McLean and Sons, the contractors for the track and conduits, state that since the commencement of the works they lost 45 whole clays, and our contractors state that some 15 days will have to be added to this, made up of portions of days lost owing to tho rain. Similar delays owing to the bad weather were, of course, also experienced in the works at our power station as well as in the construction of our Ponsonby car depot. 6. On November 4, 1901, my company applied to the Harbour Board for the lease of a pumphouse site adjoining the city morgue. The said lease was duly granted on November 27, 1901, and satisfactorily arranged as per letter dated March 5 last, subject, of course, to the usual formalities being complied with. This would have enabled us to order the plant for such pumphouse, and complete the erection of same by Juno 1 last. However, shortly afterwards we were informed that a mistake had been made, and that the site in question had already been leased to the City Council. This necessitated negotiations between yourselves and the Harbour Board, and it was only on the 17th inst. that the latter was in a position to inform me to the effect that the site in question had been surrendered by the City Council in my company's favour, which placed us then in the same position we were in on March 5 mentioned above. Thus you will see that more than a further four months were lost in the direction of completing our works owing to this delay, over which my company had no control. " From the above you will readily see, gentlemen, that a considerable extension of amounting altogether to at least 23 monthswill, by virtue of the deed of delegation, have to be added to our contract quite irrespective of the periods of 60 clays, and. 60 days relative to default. Hence no penalties in respect of any alleged breaches, neglects, and details, can properly be claimed, and in the interests of my company I am compelled to'deny that my company is in default, and to deny that it has incurred any penalties. Further, if Ido not specifically deny each particular alleged breach, neglect, or default, it must not be considered that I admit any of them. ' "I feel justified in stating that my company has, during the last 12 months, furnished ample proof of our intention to complete the works as quickly as possible, and the fact that in about two months' time the electric tramways will not only be running within the city boundary, but also to three or four of the suburbs (which need not have been completed before May, 1904), will show you that we have practically reduced the above-mentioned unavoidable delay to a very short period, owing to our having put forth utmost exertions to complete the works as quickly as circumstances would permit us to do." , ' ■■ - The letter was referred tb the Legal Committee

At a later stage the Streets Committee of the Council reported on a request from the Tramways Company for permission to commence work for the Heme Bay Road and Shortland-stroet extensions, before the Order-in-Council for the same is issued. The committee recommended that the application be granted, and the Council agreed.