TENDERS FOR DOMINIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19136, 2 April 1924, Page 7

TENDERS FOR DOMINIONS

SUSPICIONS IN BRITAIN. LONDON, March 3. Whether Australian invitations for tenders for engineering work shall in future be accompanied by substantial monetary guarantees of genuineness is a question that the Federation of British Industries will shortly be asked to decide. It is understood that grave doubts erst in the minds of a-number of members of the federation regarding the bona, fades ot recent inquiries in connection with Australian constructional work, and they intend to ask for an investigation with a view to placing the costly process of tendering for dominion contracts on the same basis as in the architectural profession, which charges a fee for all designs submitted. . . “Not only are too many Dominion inquiries ending in smoke,” said a leading engineer, “but there are serious grounds for believing that certain Australian firms have been asking us to prepare tenders and drawings simply to see how we do the job and at what cost, thus barefacedly getting the value of our brains and experience gratis. “British tenderers, seven times cut of ten, receive a polite letter of thanks, intimating that the work is being carried out in Australia. Wo are quite prepared for these set-backs, which are concomitant with any business, but it is disconcerting to find that the finished job embodies features and ideas more or less faithfully copied from various British tenderers’ desrens. A recent example followed my designs so closelv that 1 cabled my Australian agent to’cease forwarding further inquiries. “The problem is more serious than the loss of a few hundred pounds which the tenderer always incurs in the preparation of designs and estimates and in cabling for further information, because the practice of a few dishonest persons destroys the mutual trust and confidence which is the foundation of British business. ’