The routine duties of the Public Works Department are, if I may say 40, uninteresting. That there is little to say on the subject may be, and I due to the fact that they are well performed. The completion of the! two new steel bridges over the Soochow Creek has occupied a considerable share of attention during the year, and it is seme source of congratulation that the 2 Bridge was opened to traffic withia the estimated time, eighteen months. Had any of the cofferdams failed, it might have involved a further delay of many months. My attention has been drawn to the case of the central pier of Vauxhall Bridge. There. with a cofferdam not much larger than ours, with first-class foreign contractors and up-to-date plant, it required sixteen months to make the cofferdam tight. The Council considers that no little credit is due to Mr. Mayne for his work on the foundations, which have been carried out departmentally, and to the Contractors, Messrs. Howarth Erskine, Ld., for the efficient manner in which the steel superstructure has been erected. We were fortunate in obtaining the services of Mr. A. H. Collinson as Consulting Engineer for both of these public works.
The supervision of the work of constructing the tramway, and the ever-increasing list of Municipal building requirements, new buildings as well as enlargement of old ones, have been prominent among the matters calling for the attention of the Municipal Engineer. We have had difficulties with the various public companies who now make use of the public streets for their pipes and wires. Their conflicting interests have already involved the Counci it, and the incoming oun:
to pick its way carefully between the pitfalls dog for it in the name of locomotion, water and light.
Turning to the Financial Statement itself you will find a surplus of Ordinary Income over Expenditure of Tls. 372,000 against an estimated surplus of Tls. 409,000. We have raised the full amount of loan authorized, Tls. 250,000, ud the Extraordinary' Expenditure, including a small deficit from 1908, has amounted to Tis, 824,000. It is impossible for me to attempt this afternoon to account in detail for the deficit of Tls. 202,000 we carry forward to next year.
But I may perhaps mention some among the larger items of Expenditure which we have incurred without your direct authority. Our bridges have cost tus Tls. 27,000 more than we thought. In land we have apout an extra Tls. 8,000 on the Police Depét in Connaught Road, Tls. 20,000 on enlarging the Victoria Nursing Home, Tls. 30,000 on the Hongkew Recreation Ground, and Tis, 16,000 on the open space at the corner of Jessfield and Brennan Roads. We have expended Tls. 44,000 in excess of the appropriation for new roads. These figures taken with those of the Comparative Statement on page 261 of the Report tell their own tale.
The accounts are presented in the fallest detail and it only remains fo the Connell to say that if you consider we have overstepped the limits of pra-coco. la sagan to. expesditars you must indicate in which direction greater economy should have been observed.
I would like to refer, on behalf of myself and the other members of the Council, to our appreciation of the services of the permanent staff of may congratulate themselves on the Municipality. I think the communi
general efficiency of the Service, Dur—. ing the year we have lost by death the services of Mr. A. E. Jones and is Jones had served the Council for cond fitting that I record our re
forty years, and we authorized the issue of 8 gratuity ofa year's pay for benefit of his family.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.