DISTRICT NEEDS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 72, 7 January 1936, Page 6

DISTRICT NEEDS.

CONFERENCE WITH MINISTER. ROAD, EAIL AND OTHER WORK. (Per Press Association). WELLINGTON, January 6. Public Works district engineers from all parts of the Dominion will meet the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple) in conference shortly. The object, said the Minister to-day, is to discuss roading, railway construction and all other types of work under their jurisdiction. "I want," said Mr Semple, "to get information about the needs of their districts, numbers of men employed, the rates of pay and working conditions, and the type of plant employed. It is useless using obsolete tools—hopeless from the engineer's efficiency viewpoint and heart-breaking to the men concerned. We must adopt modern methods on big jobs. The conference will secure a common understanding on the methods of carrying out public works and complete co-ordination upon national policy. "We will also get a common understanding how: the men arc to be treated on the job, making it possible for the engineers to give the best in them and giving the men the encouragement necessary to give the best in them also. These are conditions making for efficiency which we expect and will demand. "There will be no sleeping on the job. Hard work hurts no one, and a man will feel more like a citizen if he has earned his wages. I know what men can do. I do not demand the impossible, and will do the fair thing." Mr Semple, in his capacity as Minister of Transport, is also calling a conference of all transport interests. The whole question, he said, bristles with difficulty, and must be straightened out, but not behind closed doors.