DEAR SIR:--Hearing that questions have arisen in regard to the propriety of contracting the work upon the Hoosac Tunnel, it may not be improper for me to say that that subject (contemplated in the Act of 1863,) has for a long time engaged the serious attention of the commissioners, who have already a contract for constructing a portion of the West End, before the governor and council, awaiting their approval under section 3 of chapter 214 of the Acts of 1863. When the economic value of their new facilities shall be demonstrated, they expect further to avail of this system 80 far as the interest of the State (as represented by the rapid, economical and certain progress of the work,) shall warrant. While the high prices now prevailing will probably render the letting of large jobs at this time injudicious, they are not of short contracts, or of letting portions of the work to the miners by the piece. Very truly yours, J. W. BROOKS, _Chairman_. The Committee coincide with the views of the commissioners. And the justness of their remarks, that the State must not expect to have the work done at less than its cost, is borne out by the operations under the contract for the West End enlargement, where the State has increased the contract from four to seven dollars and fifty cents a perch, in order to insure the miners a compensation for their labor. It may be proper to state in this connection, that the labor done upon the road and tunnel by early contractors, has not tended to a "rapid, economical and certain progress of the work," and that if even the whole work should be put under contract, the interest of the Commonwealth would require the continuance of a commission, and the services of an engineer of the highest skill and integrity to superintend its performance in order to avoid a loss and damage similar to that which occurred to the State while the work was under the nominal control of the Troy and Greenfield Railroad corporation. The retirement of all the gentlemen who comprised the board of commissioners, first appointed under the legislation of 1862, affords the Committee an opportunity to acknowledge the eminent talent and ability which they respectively possessed for the discharge of the important duties assigned to them, and to bear testimony to the industry and intelligence displayed in their elaborate and comprehensive report upon the subject of the railroad and tunnel in 1863. It was fortunate for the State in that crisis in the affairs of this enterprise to be able to command so much practical information upon a question so interesting and important, and at the same time so difficult of solution.