It's unwise to pay too much, but it's unwise to pay too little too. When you pay too much, you lose a little money.....that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The Common Law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot...it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.....John Ruskin

John Ruskin was a legendary art critic, whose biting wit led to one of the most famous libel suits in British jurisprudence. The suit was brought by the American painter, James McNeil Whistler following his unconventional portrayal of the River Thames during a fireworks display.

In a critique, Ruskin had written that Whistler had been impudent to ask 1,000 guineas for 'flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.' Whistler responded with a libel suit.

But during cross-examination, Whistler delivered an ironic riposte to Ruskin's dictum on values. Asked by the defense how long he had taken to paint his 'Nocturne in black and gold: The falling rocket', Whistler replied that the painting had taken only a 'few hours.'

Seeking advantage, Ruskin's lawyer said: "You asked 1,000 guineas for a few hours work?" Whistler: "No, I asked it for the knowledge of a lifetime."

There is a supreme irony in this scenario. On the one hand, Ruskin points out the difference between price and value. On the other hand, Whistler makes a most telling case against Ruskin's attack by pointing out the intrinsic value of talent and experience.

More fiscal ironies were to follow. Whistler won his case but the jury contemptuously awarded him damages of one farthing, the lowest coin of the Realm, equal to one cent in our inflated currency. The case bankrupted Whistler who had to sell his house, while the independently wealthy Ruskin ultimately became a professor of art at Oxford.

But perhaps Whistler had the last laugh. Ruskin, in spite of wealth, and literary fame, based on a love of art and beauty, never consummated his marriage, later annulled. Whistler, forced to sell his unique house in Chelsea, took off with a mistress to Venice where his work achieved widespread acclaim. (His father incidently was a civil engineer.)

But Ruskin's low bid warning remains as valid now as it was in the last century, while Whistler's reply on the value of experience is equally memorable. These lessons should be re-stated today for the low bid ethos has reached plague proportions in the municipal and government buying sectors.

Ironically, the private sector, supposedly driven by the profit motive, is much more concerned with reliability, service and value engineering than the public sector. A plant manager buying pumps or other process equipment, for example, knows only too well that profits go down when the pumps do. Moreover, private sector managers often place a real value on quality of service. They know that some firms will send repairmen out day or night, weekends or holidays; that some firms back up their equipment with a dedication seldom reflected in the purchase price.

One valve manufacturer lost a local bid by one half of one percent to a foundry thousands of miles away. As valves usually last decades, amortising this picayune price percentage over the life of the valves would amount to pennies. Moreover, as valves play a role in fire fighting, protecting both life and property, equipment reliability and service are paramount. Any equipment malfunctioning could cost lives as well as huge sums of money in fire losses.

When the need for service, spares or other maintenance requirements arises, what are the chances of getting service in two decades, or four decades for that matter? Did the buyers even consider that the local foundry was pumping millions into that municipality in wages and taxes? Doubtful. Quality not mere price, should be the determining factor.

The low bid mindset has developed into economic lunacy, often blended with environmental chaos which is ravaging many quality consulting firms and analytical laboratories. This mindset remains the biggest disincentive for firms to evolve with the technology and staff to match the new challenges. I've met with environmental engineers and chemists who are developing space age capabilities yet are reduced to flogging their professional services at charge-out rates more comparable to service station tariffs. This is more than a disgraceful state of affairs, it is the prelude to the dismantling of a viable Canadian environmental export industry. Why should young men and women study the arduous engineering and chemistry courses - only to work in intellectual sweat shops?

Buyers selecting consulting or laboratory services quite often fail to realize the price differential of various suppliers - when amortized over the life of the project - is infinitesimal. Even a design bill for a million dollars dissolves into what is virtually petty cash as projects designed with quality engineering keep on serving our communities with economy and reliability for decades.

If nothing else the O.J. Simpson case has highlighted the value of quality data and the vital necessity of strict custodial protocols. Laboratory and consulting professionals need increasingly high standards for these protocols from field sampling right to the laboratory bench. It's ironical that as our analytical laboratory equipment becomes more sophisticated, the human element in interpreting the data becomes ever more important.

Considering the value of analytical data, often used for construction projects which will cost hundreds of millions, it is amazing that price is so often the major criterion in selecting laboratory services.

Like Whistler, some consultants and laboratories offer the 'knowledge of a lifetime' with their services. And as his adversary Ruskin said: 'When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.' Purchasing agents should note these wise words.

The final word should go to Oscar Wilde, a devotee of Ruskin's aesthetic theories who echoed Ruskin's warnings on values. He said: "Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing." Ironically, like Whistler, he was bankrupted by an unsuccessful libel suit.

Are we now going to intellectually bankrupt our high tech environmental industry with low bid mindsets that dwell upon price to evaluate the value of complex systems? Buyers should choose wisely. Well-designed equipment will continue to provide reliability and service, after the price - and the buyer - are long forgotten.