§ SIR ALFRED HICKMAN (Wolverhampton, W.)To ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that an order was given to an American firm for thirty viaducts for the Uganda Railway in October, 1900, and that it was a condition of the contract that they should be erected complete in forty-six weeks, that is, by September 1901; whether, seeing that the first viaduct was completed by the 31st March, 1901, and seven more by the 31st March, 1902, he can say when the remaining twenty-two will be finished and whether in future he will insert penalties sufficient to prevent delay in fulfilling contracts.
(Answered by Lord Cranborne.) An order was given for twenty-seven viaducts in December, 1900, to an American firm which had offered to construct and deliver them in forty-six weeks. The contract provided that actual erection was to be completed within seven months from the date on which the chief engineer should report that he was ready for the contractors to begin work. This he did on the 20th December, 1901, and the viaducts should therefore have been completed by 19th July, 1902. Thirteen of these viaducts have already been taken over 1112 from the contractors. Penalties to prevent delay were provided in the contract in the usual manner, but no decision can be come to in regard to enforcing them until the works are finished, and the circumstances under which the delay occurred fully considered.