TIMARU HARBOUR BOARD

Timaru Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 3462, 5 January 1901, Page 4

TIMARU HARBOUR BOARD

'*An special meeting of the Thnaru "Sar-j Sbonrißoard was held yesterday. -Present: Messrs W. Evans (chairman), Eraser,Young, Macintosh, Manchester, LyalL; .Skinner, Goodwin, Turnbull, and Pringle. .Notice was received from the Borough. aJeturning Officer, of the election of .Mr; D- C.iTurnbuH as a member of the Board.; The. .chairman welcomed Mr Turnbull-to -tie Board, and wished all the member .a - -Happy. New Tear. ; .The chairman read the resolution that, this meeting be called. A letter was read from the N.M. and; A, Company, asking the Board to recon-. «ider their decision declining to accept the, order of the contractors in their, favour,; -regarding- the contractors' £IOOO deposit.; They did not see how the Board could ie : -prejudicediby the order, and the request; to give effect to it when the money became' returnable,to the contractors.—Mr Fraser; pointed out. that the money might be for-, -feited —Mr, Pringle did not see why tier Board could not give the company a- claim upon the depssit. Two letters jK-ere read from the Levels Council, conveying complaints that • portions of thaiC'tipua road had been made by the construction of the ■tramline along &e road.—Referred to the engineer to report, and to take action if - after consulting the chairman. The N.M. and A. Company wrote asking the Board to hold on their behalf A third lot- of hardwood timber landed for the extension context, and asking _ that .-' future arrivals be «s3iilarly protected for them. THE EXTENSION CONTRACT.

The following report by the Resident Engineer, dated Januazy Ist, was read:— "I have the honour Je hand you the following .report upon the,-Eastern Extension Bubble Mole contract. "Ihavs carefully examined the whole ot -the works in Messrs Black and Stumbles' contract, :*Jid I find very .little progress has been.jsade since I repei&ed on December 14th last. Nothing has been done towards the erection of ths sea. staging, and there atg- no piles on the ground for the work and rails for bracing, " Tramline^—From the commencement to 1 mile 20 cbasas the line has -bean fairly Trail ballasted, but not topped *p, -and the rails are ne&ier true to line jspr level. From thence to the termination of the line there is hardly any under "pallasf. According to the contract there should be Jb inche*. In masy places the _sleepers are lying in the claj- formation; in some places there is lin of ballast. The greatest depth I found snywhere was 4in. The rails are nowhere either straight or leveL The whole of this length, viz., 2 miles 42 chains, has to be lifted to the - proper height and topped up. Practically about.less than half the necessary ballast only is on this part, of the line, and at the present rate of progress it will be several weeks before the line is fit tot run .stone upon. .: " Cemetery- bridge. There has been no- - tiling done to'complete this work, and the - public are mnch inconvenienced by having the road to the cemetery blocked for so long. "Quarry.—A mass of stone has been loosened, bnt nothing has been done to open the quarry for real work, or to make any safe road to erect and work the cranes upon. The contractors have no plant upon the ground as yet" for carrying out the work, nor a locomotive of sufficient power to handle the traffic. " The contractors complain that the tipwaggons to be supplied by the Board are not suitable for the' purpose, and that the big crane to be supplied by the Board has not yet come to hand. I would beg to point out that these are only mere excuses, and could only be entertained as justifying delay if the contractors were at a, stand, having properly finished the tramline, opened up the quarry, and had began the sea staging. And as regards insufficiency in the waggons, I would beg to point out that under clause 16 of the general conditions, the responsibility of making the waggons suitable r§§ts with, me contractors; and tilt in any" case they must provide an additional number in order to carry out the work in the contract .time; but they hare taken no steps in this direction as yet. "In conclusion, I regret to state that, after carefully considering the whole state of the works, in my opinion the present -contract is one which quite overtaxes the ability of the contractors, and that there is no hope of their successfully completing the work in anything like contract time, and that as no real progress has been made since November 29th, on which date

notice was given them that they were failing to make dne progress, I should now advise the Board to absolutely determine the contract at once. —I- have, etc., "A. DUDLEY DOBSON, M.1.C.E." A supplementary note of nest day's date ■was. read as follows :

"In my report of yesterday's date, I omitted to mention the financial aspect) of

the progress made by Messrs Black and Stumbles on their contract. In all works -of this character, when the time is limited", and the contractor has to provide a considerable amount of plant and material, "the first six months of the work are those in which the greatest pro rata, expenditure has to be made. The very lowest

rate at which work, plant, and material should be placed on the ground is shown as follows :—Total contract in round num-

bers, £45,000, less contract profit 15 per cent., £6750—£38,250. This is £1590 per month for the term of two years, for seven months, £11,158. Including £SOO which is not in the contract sum for Otipua bridge,, the last certificate only shows the value as £3677 Is. The value of the .locomotive and ballast trucks have not to be considered in this account, as they remain marketable assets at the end of the contract." The following letter, dated January. 3rd, from the contractors, Messrs Black and. Stumbles, was read:— . • - ~ "We have to acknowledge that a copy of Mr A. D. Dobson's report, dated December 18th, has been sentio us.

''With reference to only four men laving been seen at the quarry opposite Otipua Creek on December 14th, we have to say that our men were shifted on that morning to other work, pending 1 the four men putting the finishing touch, on a, blast *bat was fired at daylight) next morning. "In reporting on work done since October 20th, the big embankment beyond the Otipua appears to be omitted. The tramfine from the plantation to the bridge was

also dose at our cost. Both items cost ns s> considerable stun of money. With regard to the opinion that a sufficient quarry has not been opened out sooner, we always proposed working two quarries simultaneously—one on each side of the bridge. "The Board appears to be unaware of the very misleading quarry plan issued to all the tenderers, and its effect on our proceedings. "We would hare had the quarry at the end of the Board's tramline opened some time ago, but discovered on starting to trench that your area extended only a few feet behind the open face of the old quarry, and not from 3 to 4 chains behind, as we were assured by plan No. 8, by specifications, and by position of terminus of tramline, etc Since then we instructed Mr Boys, surveyor, to furnish ua with a plan showing the true boundary of your quarrying area there. The surrey plan was sent to you some time ago and makes the fact clear that your stone there consists only of the sloping outcrop, behind Mr King's new house. Meantime the non-existence of stone shown on the Board's plan is a very serious affair to us.

"The New Zealand railway authorities have agreed to allow the trucks which bring your new crane, ex-Waiwera from Lyttelton, to go out to the quarry siding, at 4s per ton. Another shipment of ironbark came by the Wanaka, and piles come by following steamer. The second locomotive is due at Lyttelton on the 7th inst. Immediately you can give us delivery of the big crane we will fit it up with all speed. If we were to put the second-hand crane ahead of the new one, it would necessitate the blasting of all stone, approximating 20 tone, into pieces adapted to the lifting power of the second-hand crane, and thereby lessen the size of the stone said to be now wanted first for protecting the outer arm of the'mole.

" "We are not aware of any circumstance thafJ will prevent us from carrying out the «ntire contract to a timely and successful end, and in conforflßUy to the usual practice adopted by experienced contractors. ** W« hare already assured you as to the plant, and given yon as expert's

opinion ton the iitnicks. lin a ; previous letter. We are -ballasting the tramline lightly meantime, and shall finish this work while the crane is'being fitted up." Referring to the quarry plan, the secretary said the Board's plan was correct. The contractors had -again arid again- said . they'did not-'intend' tovquarry- any stone on this .-aide of the creek. The- conditions of the contract, moreover, distinctly-pro-vided that the contractors must satisfy .themselves of the correctness of all infor-mation-supplied them, and they'have no claim for any error of Jttatf kind. 'The plan -attached to"the specification was one supplied ? by'Mr King, from a survey by Mr Thomson." Regarding the piles," Mr'Pringle said an -officer of theWanaka-a fortnight ago-told -him that there were piles for the Timaru; harbour work on barges up the river afc Newcastle, but the contractor could not ■«et a tug to fetch the ! !barges down, other•wise the 'Wanaka would'-have' brought them 'last trip. . _ , The chairmaninvited all tie members to .-express their opinion. "It was a very ■serious:matter'for the' Board. Every mem-. :ber,'he .was-sure, would'.be-Tfiiy sorry to have to carry out the-engineers-report. At thejsametimeit was not a matter for sentiment, the Board'had a public duty. "If ■theycould see any possible way of getting over fee-difficulty, the Board would do its best :to help the contractors along. But there was the report that they were not carrying out the work to the satisfactiont,f the -engineer. At any moment they might'be overwhelmed by a storm, and he would like-to see good progress-made with the contract Mr Fraser agreed with' the ehaiisnan, that it was -not the desire of any-member of tie Board to interfere in any way with "the contractors, if there was any likelihood of their carrying out the contract -within the given time. The Board must look at the matter from -a business point of view; and must let sentiment go to -the wdlL They had -the report of the engineer stating clearly and conclusively that there was no prospect whatever, of the contmct being finished witiin iSxe time stipulated. Under these however disagreeable it might be to themselves —was to determine tiie contract. He renreited it very much, as the contractors were old acquaintances of his, but he <»ull aot allow any sort of sentiment to with his duty. Mr-Young said thai; in the face of the engineer's report third was nothing else to do. None of them had any wish to hamper the contractors, out they must not cou-.ider friendships there. According to the en g::Ker's report they had no option, but to xetr. n;ite the contract, much" as tl ey nvght regret it. Mr Manchester said the position was a very difficult one. He had been oppored to the whole work, but as the Board sni the ratepayers ~h.il determined to >:arry it on, he felt boui 1 to do everything he could to make the whole scheme a success. (Hear, hear.) He would have been very glad if there had been that morning any indication, any faint hope of the contractors succeeding, but in the face of the engineer's very plain statement there seemed to be none. He would like if possible to give the men an additional chance, but they would have the whiter upon them soon. Mr Pringle «aid he would like to see the work pushed on,- and. they all knew that it had been very difficult to get timber and iron. It would have been the same no matter who had the contract. They had also been hampered in getting a locomotive, but it would be here on the 7th. The Board would meet again in a fortnight, and if the contractors got the locomotive, and got the crane at the quarry, and started to lay down stone, he wouhL not like to cancel the contract. He had no brief for the contractors, but he did not like to see men who were trying their level best—though he did not know whether they were trying their level best or not. He had heard what the officer of the Wanaka said about the piles. He did not know whether they were coming for the contractor!!, but the officer said they were for this work. He would give them till next meeting. Let them take up the crane and get some stone down to protect the outer arm; the other work was not so pressing. Mr Goodwin said it would be a pity to determine the contract, but they had been at it since November. The chairman had told them that the contractors could have got an engine from the Government long ago. They could not get stone down for weeks,, as the tramline was not ballasted. The only thing the Board could do was to determine the contract.

Mr Skinner said every member had the greatest sympathy with the contractors, at the same" time they must do their duty. He was sorry for it, but there seemed nothing else for it, but to determine the contract. The penalty for exceeding the time —£50 per week—might be a small sum compared with the damage thajt might be done by delay. Mr Lyall said it seemed to him that the contractors' financial position was at fault. Could the Board assist then! by paying for material ?

The chairman said there was advice from the solicitors against it. Mr Lyall said, that being so, he saw nothing for it but to determine the contract.

The chairman suggested that the solicitor should be sent for, and this was done. Mr Macintosh would be sorry to see the i contract ended, as the contractors had sunk a lot of money in it, and he would approve of leaving decision till next meeting. He had seen a document which implied that the contractors' finance had been arranged, and if there was a chance of their succeeding they should be given the chance. They had Gertainly not treated the Board properly, in respect to crossings and flsgmen, and they did not seem anxious to work in harmony with the Board. But he would be sorry to inflict financial loss upon them if there was any chance of their carrying out the contract. The "secretary stated that the engineer had said he would not give them a certificate for carrying stone until the line was properly ballasted, and that would take three weeks.

Mr Pringle suggested that if the contractors were allowed to go on they might get on quicker than the Board could. How were the Board to do any better, if the contractors pushed on ? The chairman said the engineer's report was very strong. There should nave been so many thousands spent, And not onethird of it had been spent, and not more than two or three months' work done in seven months. The Board were deputed by the public to act for them and if anything went wrong with the breakwater in the meantime the Board would be personally blamed for it. It was a very unfortunate position. Mr- Fraser said the engineer had re marked that it would be a seven years' job instead of two, at the past rate of progress. Mr Kinnerney here came in, and the Board went into committee to confer with him. As U result of the conference the ing resolution, drawn up by Mr Kinnerney at the requesst of the chairman, was moved by Messrs Fraser and Macintosh, and carried unanimously:—"That the contractors be notified that unless within 14 days from this date they make such progress with the eastern extension rubble mole contract as the engineer shall deem sufficient to ensure the completion of the work within the contract time, the Board will proceed to take the necessary steps to absolutely determine the contract." Mr Manchester remarked that as he expected sentiment had prevailed that day, he expected it would prevail at next meeting The worst aspect of the affair was that the contractors had not done as much as they could have done, and had been contending every little point.

The secretary read a letter from Mr Rawson, late engineer to the Westport Board, stating that the quarry trucks used there were the best he had ever used, and these were made on the same plan. The Westport trucks had no brakes, and safely descended grades of 1 in 50 with the engine brakes only, and the sides irere high enough if the stuff was properly loaded. The secretary said he wrote to Westport for particulars of these trucks, a fortnight ago, but had not yet got a reply. The Board also dealt with the question of continuing the insurance of the dredge at Home, and it was resolved on the motion, of Messrs Macintosh and Young:—" That the dredge Timaru be not insured through

Messss Price, Forbes :and; Co,, Slut that the premium be set aside as a renew.fi!'fund." — The chairman did no approve -oi this decision. No ibody lilted :_>payifig insurance premiums, but if they had. a disaster to the dredge they would be: sorry that, .they did. not keep, her insured. The Board then rose.