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the English architect has to find some one to take charge of such an undertaking, it will be most desirable to get a superintendent, not only familiar with the work, but also acclimatised to the country, and used to dealing with natives. If these points are neglected, or any one of them, the work will run a great risk of being entirely stopped. Upon the risks due to ignorance of the work, I need not enlarge, but it is as well to note that if the superintendent is unfamiliar with the climate and imprudent, there is every risk of his being seized with fever, or sunstroke, or some other violent ailment, such as besets a hot climate, especially where there is exposure, and so laid aside; or, if this be escaped, the work may be equally hindered by the superin tendent being imposed upon by the craftiness of the natives, or by his blundering through ignorance upon something distasteful to the natives engaged. As, for instance, I have heard of a very extreme case of an entire work being deserted by all the men engaged upon it, owing to the European superintendent having laid his hands on one of the workmen, whose notions of caste was thereby outraged. Such a thing as this may seldom occur, and the narrative may have been exaggerated, but the unwary agent will be extremely likely to be over-reached by the craft or overpowered by the caste combinations of natives, 'which last are quite as formidable as our own trades unions, and even more unanimous in action. If the work is for any colonial government, the probability is very great that it will be handed over to an officer of Royal Engineers, to carry out by day labour; or, as it is officially termed in India, departmentally. Large numbers of plain build ings, such as barracks, are executed by the officers of this body from their own designs, according to plans and estimates prepared by themselves, they purchasing the materials and employing labour ; and their system for doing this work appears to me admirably well organized for this purpose ; but any one who has had experience of it will fully understand that neither architec ture nor building is the proper function of military engineers, and that as an executive this corps is not suited to the require ments of work of high architectural pretensions, and that it hardly seems giving military officers their proper position to employ them upon the carrying out of any work except from designs prepared by the officer engaged. At the same time that I make these remarks, I must add that this corps contains indi vidual officers who have distinguished themselves in India as architects by their designs and executed works ; and that they have been pioneers in the work of constructing in that country buildings for European use. They have excellent facilities for procuring from England such articles of European manufacture as they want, but perhaps have been themselves led by this very facility, and by their example have led others, to neglect the cultivation of the resources of the country. If the proposed work be government work, it will be in some way, anti pro bably in every way, under the Public Works Department, wherever, as in India, such a department exists, and taken in hand by the military engineers of that department : and the great evil which, in that case, the architect has to fear, and if possible to guard against, is his work being wholly or in part modified, set aside, or superseded. To prevent this, the precaution should first of all be taken of being quite sure that there is nothing which will require necessarily to be set aside ; nothing manifestly unsuited to the climate, to the materials of the locality, or to rude and imperfect workmanship and means of execution. The ar chitect should, secondly, be quite sure that there is nothing which will require necessarily to be added; his drawings, while as little voluminous as he can make them, should be so comprehensive and complete as to furnish every detail, anti cipate every question, and supply all needed information. Thirdly, he should be quite sure that all his documents are regularly in the form customarily used and understood by the engineers, especially his detailed estimate; to use a homely phrase, he should send out the whole thing cut and dried. Lastly, he should omit no opportunity of getting any official sanction, and mark in the shape of seals or signatures on the drawings, or official and thoroughly formal minutes and memo randa in their favour, as he can by hook or by crook obtain from any one in authority. The reason of this last suggestion is that in India, and more or less in all colonies, very frequent changes in administration occur; so that if the official sanction of an officer be not obtained early to anything which he had agreed to and ought to sanction, there is a great risk that h® may be suddenly promoted or transferred, and the matter far into the hands of a succcs or. who, if not bound by the officia’ action of his predecessor, may take some totally different view, and upset all that has been done. This labour, you will per ceive, is greatly in excess of what is required upon an English building up to the time of sending away plans, and it requires to be well remunerated. It is considered by those best quali fied to judge, that if thoroughly well done, the work on a pro per set of plans, &c., of this sort, equals all that is wanted here up to the time of making contract, with the addition of about half that which is subsequently done by the architect here during the time of his superintendence of the building. I may add that the Government of Bombay has officially recognized the scale of professional charges issued by this Institute. It is, however, quite possible that, at least in the case of architects residing and practising in India, these rates ought in fairness to be increased ; for it is, I believe, customary for the members of other professions to charge double the English fee for their services. At least this is understood to be the practice of physicians, solicitors, engineers, &c. at Bombay, and probably therefore will be the rule in other parts of India. But to return to the agency for executing works. There can be little doubt that in the case of any very large work the employment of an European contractor of energy and skill furnishes the best guarantee for the good and rapid execution of the work, and any members of this Institute who have heavy works in tropical climates will do well to urge on their clients the great advantage, almost the necessity, for employing the best English contractor who can be found, making liberal terms with him, and stipulating for his sending a representative to be on the spot, experienced in work, used to deal with natives, and already accustomed to a tropical climate. It will, however, only seldom happen that a work is important enough to tempt a good contractor from England, and European contractors settled abroad, or the native contractors, will usually be the agency best to employ, and of these, probably, native con tractors will, as often as not, be found the most useful ; but in either case it cannot be too much impressed on the architect, whose designs are to be carried out by hands used mainly to different work, and certainly unused to him, that the instruc tions conveyed by his plans and documents should be very full, very lucid, and quite unmistakeable, and that simplicity should regulate and pervade all his contrivances and arrangements. There still remains the ultimate question, and the most purely architectural question of all. What aspect, as works of ait, shall we, as artists, strive to impress upon the buildings whose arrangement and construction we have been considering ? I shall not attempt to examine this question at all in detail, but cannot forbear raising it, for the art of any building is undoubtedly the one element, whatever value we may put upon it, which concerns us architects peculiarly, and almost exclu sively. All classes of builders require to understand materials and construction. Many unprofessional men require to com prehend the arrangement of buildings and organization of works. Professional men in other branches of the great building art are called on both to comprehend and carry out all these, but it is our special honour that to us is committed the charge of those works, which it is desirable to render not merely serviceable as structures, but impressive as monuments; that of us is expected, indeed, a work of skill, and not merely a work of skill, but also a work of art. 1 hold that the solution of this question lies first in the adoption of a type essentially European; and, secondly, in the retention and blending with it of such admissible features as are to be found in the best styles of architecture that have been elaborated already in tropical climates. Had we a distinctive modem English style, we ought unques tionably to use it in our colonies, as the Roman did in his colonies, with such changes as local circumstances made necessary. But though this is unhappily denied us, there are in existence distinctive European styles, and I hold very strongly that, as our administration exhibits European justice, order, love of law, energy, and honour, so our buildings ought to hold up a high standard of European art. They ought to be European, both as a rallying-point for ourselves, and as raising a distinctive mark of our presence, always to be beheld by the natives of the country.
