MENTAL HOSPITAL BUILDING.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 276, 19 November 1913, Page 7

MENTAL HOSPITAL BUILDING.

lU3STXMI-TION OF WORK REFUSED. ! EXPLANATION BY BRICKLAYERS' UNION. A communication received from the Bricklayers" I nion. signed by Mr. T. 1). Hell (president) nnd Mr- W. E. (iibson i secretary I. contains an explanation of the attitude taken up in regard to the application made by Dr. Beattie for work to be resumed on the additions to the Mental Hospital, in view of the urgent need existing for the extra accommodation. The letter reads:—• "In reply to the report and letter of Dr. Beattie on the attitude of the Auckland Bricklayers' Union towards the Mental Hospital in stopping the bricklayers working there. I have to state that there were four bricklayers and one apprentice working there, not 30 as slated. The institution has been overcrowded for years past, and a week or two more or less cannot make much difference. After the dispute is settled an additional number of men can be employed, and the work finished in contract time. An asylum has been built at Tokanui. sufficient to accommodate over a hundred patients, and was ready for occupation in February last, with the exception of connecting water and light, and since then little or no attempt has been made to effect, the connection. Why is this-; The resolution deciding to cease work was carried unanimously by secret ballot at a meeting of the union, and therefore the onus of stopping the work cannot be laid upon the shoulders of the leaders, who have no desire to cause inconvenience or dislocation in any public institution. as witness the Strike Committee's, manifesto regarding the hospitals. We are forced to make these statements to clear ourselves in the eyes of the public. The over-crowded state of the institution is due to the neglect and apathy of the Government, aud if Dr. Beattie made the same statement to the Taiipiri Coal Company and the Union Shipping Company, that the strike has been caused by the greed of a ghoulish few. he yvould have been nearer the mark."