PUBLIC WORKS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 70, 4 January 1936, Page 3

PUBLIC WORKS

THE MINISTER’S EXPECTATIONS. HARD WORK FOR GOOD PAY. (Per Press Association). AUCKLAND, January 3. A tribute to the capacity of a New Zealander to work hard, provided he was given the chance, was paid by the Minister for Public Works, the Hon. It. Semple, while on a visit to the Hobsonville Air Base. He had travelled: a good deal, and had worked with all types of men, he said, and he had found that the New Zealander, given an opportunity, was among the best in the world as a worker. Mr Semple also praised New Zealand engineers. They had a hard and thorough training, and geological features provided them with hard problems to solve on nearly all jobs. “A New Zealand worker, skilled or otherwise, can be compared with any in the world,” he said. The Minister said that as soon as possible the Government proposed to do away with all kinds of relief. On public works, men were asked to do a good job, and they should get standard rates of pay for it. Where possible, he said, he would put them on piecework, for he preferred co-opera-tive working, where the men had a chance to make as much as they could, but there would be, of course, a fixed minimum wage. Value of incentive. “You can’t expect 100 per cent, efficiency unless you give men an incentive, and unless you give engineers the materials to do their jobs,” he said. The engineers would be given the best possible equipment with which to carry out their various public works jobs, speedily and well. “The individual who expects to go on to a Public Works job and not give service is going to make a big mistake,” said Mr Semple. “The men are going to get a good reward but they have got to give us service for it. They have got to do their job.” Accompanying the Minister on his visit of inspection to Hobsonville were the Attorney-General (the Hon. H. G. It. Mason), in whose electorate tlio base is located, Squadron-Leader L. M. Isitt (officer in charge of the base), and Messrs F. S. Hyson, A. Cox and T. Rabone, of the Public Works Department. Mr lsemple commented favourably on the rapidity with which the construction work at the base was being pushed ahead, and also on the physique and type of men engaged. It was pointed out to him that the men were not specially selected, but had come from the ranks of the unemployed. One thing Mr Semple made clear. He does not like the wheelbarrow. “The Irishman’s motor-car,” he called it, and referred to its use as an “antiquated andi stupid” method of shifting earth in bulk. That, however, he said, was not the fault of the department, but of the system. In this mechanised age men should have the best possible equipment to work with. That was one of the things which his Government would attend to.