PUBLIC WORKS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 80, 15 January 1940, Page 2

PUBLIC WORKS.

CONTINUANCE FOR THE PRESENT. STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER. (Per Press Association). CHRISTCHURCH, January 14. .... “We are carrying on with public works so. long as we have material, men and money jit our disposal and so long as this does not mean the sacrifice of something greater,” said the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. R. Semple, before leaving for tho West Coast to inspect new roading work there. He referred to this intention when he was asked about the dates of the. completion of. various. works and 1 replied that completion as early' as expected might be prevented by the war. “But if, we were to suspend everything now it would breed despair and the psychology of hopelessness,” he said. “In the world to-day they, are smashing and bursting up roads and bridges and destroying a few hours work that it lias taken centuries to complete. A wave of insanity has ' burst over the> world. It is a maxim of fEe madness abroad in the world to-day to destroy and not to build, and we might regard ourselves as helpless victims of this madness and feel that - it is impossible to plan and construct v hen we see the destruction of the results of inventive genius and the capacity of man. “But there is a spirit and power greater than the selfishness and destructiveness of human nature that prompts us to go on. If men in the past had not been actuated by ,this spirit in face of destruction we would not be here to-day. We cannot surrender We must keep on building in a hope that sanity will some day return. We will do this in the public works of New Zealand insofar as we have material, men and money available, but I do not want you to think that we will allow these works to come.... before our effort in the war. We will not carry them on at the sacrifice of something greater, but we will not stop just because there is a war and give in to hopelessness and despair. The loads and bridges which are being built now will open up new fields of producton most necessary in wartime.

“We can do as much as possible to get near to. financial equality of sacrifice by giving the soldiers and their dependents all the heh> that the State can give, but those who stay at home cannot possibly talk about complete equality of sacrifice with the men who go away. If a man gives his life he is giving all that he has. If a man loses everything else he can always start again, as I did myself, with a swag on his back, but it is sheer humbug and a stupid, empty platitude for those who stay at home to refer to their sacrifice as being as great as that of ihe men who risk their lives Even among the riien who enlist there are different degrees of sacrifice. A single man is prepared to sacrifice his life, but there is the greater sacrifice of a man with a wife and children who has to ask his own kith and kin to share his lacrifhe end has to sacrifice Ids love for them. The money that we pay cannot compensate for this. The only way to ensure true equality of sacrifice is to put everybody in the firing line. That i« impossble, but we will carry on with our work here so long as it i<- possible to do so.”