MINISTER OF WORKS INTERVIEWED.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 8, 10 January 1902, Page 5

MINISTER OF WORKS INTERVIEWED.

WELLINGTON, this day,

The Minister of Works, interviewed on the question of the completion of the North Island Main Trunk railway, says he got three votes, £160,000, £20,000 and £100,000, to last up to the end of March next. He had cut his coat according to his cloth. It had always been the habit of the Department to make reductions during the summer months, because men have a better opportunity of obtaining other work, labour being more required by private employers than in winter. The men discharged were mostly single. A large number got other work almost immediately. The northern part of the Main Trunk can be as expeditiously worked in winter as in summer. He had to prosecute work with a view to minimising the cost of labour and give the quickest possible despatch. At both ends of the line the energies of the men are being concentrated on completing the parts of the line that are nearest completion. Rails ought to be close up to the works, and by completing the most needed parts a great deal was saved in haulage. Where expenditure is limited it must be spent In such a way as to get the greatest benefit in the least possible time. He hat! not the slightest doubt the line would be open between Auckland and Wellington in 1904 if Parliament provides the necessary money, namely, £300,----000 for each of the uext three years.

The Minister for Public Works contradicts a statement which recently appeared in your morning contemporary that 250 trieii who were working on the northern end of the Main Trunk Railway prior to the recent "dismissals" had left Auckland by train for Ongarue on Monday, to resume work on that section of the line, and that it was anticipated that employment would be found for the best part of 300 men. The Minister for Works says that the men referred to by the "Herald" were not dismissed, but were simply allowed to leave tne works in order that they might spend Christinas and New Year with their families. There is, rsays the Minister, no intention to increase at present the number of co-operative labourers at either end of the line. Work on the Makohine viaduct was resumed on Thursday or Friday la_...