I.—2a,

2

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. Monday, 19th August, 1875. Mr. John Sheehan, M.H.E., examined. 1. The Chairman.'] Will you be good enough to state what you know about thia matter ?—The instruction to the Committee is to inquire into the circumstances under which something like £16,000 was taken out of the vote for roads and works North of Auckland, and applied to the payment of the cost of construction of the Mangere bridge. I will state very shortly what took place in the House. There was a sum of £400,000 set apart for roads and works in the North Island, and the person (Mr. Farnall) who then represented the district which I now represent in Parliament, moved that £100,000 of the amount should be set aside specifically for the North of Auckland. After much discussion, it was agreed that £60,000 should be set apart for that purpose. A short time afterwards, £10,000 of the amount was placed at the disposal of the province, to be administered subject to the appropriation of the Council, and it was so administered. When Mr. T. B. Gillies went out of office as Superintendent, and Mr. Williamson came in, the latter gentleman applied for a second sum of £10,000, and he was informed by Mr. Vogel that the amount would be available. On the strength of that, a number of works were undertaken —some were actually under contract, and others were tendered for —when a communication was received from the Colonial Secretary (Dr. Pollen) to the effect that all works would have to be stopped; that the vote was exhausted, and that the Government would not be prepared to furnish the amount required to pay for them. That led to inquiries being made by the provincial authorities as to how the vote had become exhausted, because, although we had no precise information on the subject of the expenditure in the North Island, and though we knew that it had been very large, yet we did not think it was sufficient to swallow up the £60,00 in so short a time. The result of our inquiries was that we ascertained that the cost of constructing the bridge had been taken from that particular vote. I have here the whole of the papers from which I make my statement. The following telegram was sent to the Superintendent of Auckland (Mr. Williamson) by Mr. Vogel, on 16th December, 1873: —" The Native Minister telegraphs me that he finds, on careful inquiry, that an additional sum of £10,000 can be advantageously laid out in completion of work already commenced in that portion of the northern district between Auckland and Whangarei. He is therefore willing to intrust you with expenditure of that sum, subject to the same supervision as before." Dr. Pollen telegraphs; on 22nd May, 1574: — " Of the sum of £60,000 set apart for roads North of Auckland, £35,000 have been expended, and there are still portions of main roads, as that from the Bay of Islands to Hokianga, and from Mahurangi to Albertland, incomplete. I have therefore to request your Honor to be good enough not to enter into any engagement for expenditure out of the second sum of £ 10,000 placed in your charge until after the Session of the Assembly. Unless Parliament will supplement the vote of £400,000 for roads in the North Island, it will not be possible for the Government to meet ony other liabilities on this account, than those which are now known to have been incurred." The Superintendent telegraphed back protesting against the stoppage of the money. In the correspondence, which 1 shall leave for perusal by the Committee, no reference is made to the fact that the Mangere Bridge outlay had been charged. against the vote. When we found that the cost had been so charged, we telegraphed to the Colonial Secretary on September 7th, 1874, as follows: —" The vote is not really exhausted, but an apparent deficiency has been shown by debiting it with the cost of the Mangere Bridge, a work which was never meant to be charged against the £60,000 vote for works North of Auckland. I submit that Mr. Vogel's promise should be made good." On September Bth, Dr. Pollen replied: —" The Colonial Treasurer has had your telegram. He agrees with me that, because of the exhaustion of the vote, the proposal made in his telegram of 16th December cannot be carried out, and is also of opinion that after the intimation received from me, your Honor ought not to have entered into any further contracts or pecuniary engagements on that account. If your Honor desires it, the liabilities already incurred by you may be discharged out of the sum of £25,000 voted as a special allowance to the Province of Auckland for the current year, and if you will be good enough to forward the accounts duly certified to the Treasury here, they will be paid in due course and debited to the special allowance." I never heard the reason why the cost of the bridge was so charged until the other day, when Mr. Eichardson, in reply to a question put to him by me in the House, said that the cost was debited to the vote by arrangement with the provincial authorities of the Province of Auckland. I never before heard it even insinuated that the provincial authorities of Auckland have had a knowledge of the fact that the charge was made on the vote until it was actually made. At that time, and until Mr. Williamson took office, Mr. Gillies was Superintendent, and his Executive were myself, Mr. H. H. Lusk, and Mr. W. J. Hurst. Each of these was telegraphed to, and they replied as follows : —" During my term of office as member of the Provincial Executive, I never agreed to charge cost of Mangere Bridge to £60,000 for works North of Auckland, nor was I ever informed that it would be so charged.—W. .1. Hurst." " During my term of office as member of Provincial Executive, I never agreed to charge cost of Mangere Bridge to vote for works North of Auckland, nor was such a proposal ever made by the Colonial Government within my knowledge.—Hugh H. Lusk."' "Neither I nor my Executive ever agreed to the Mangere Bridge being so charged, nor was such a suggestion ever made, either verbally or in writing, by any member or officer of the General Government. —T. B. Gillies." As the remaining member of that Executive, I may state that I did not agree to that charge being made, and, although my honorable friend Mr. Richardson has mentioned in the House that he spoke to me on the subject during a journey to Kaipara, I must say that I have no recollection whatever of'having been spoken to on the subject. He may have mentioned the matter to me, but I have no recollecfion of his doing so, and certainly would never have agreed to it.

Mr. J. Sheehan, M.H.E.

19th Aug., 1875.