PUBLIC WORKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 186, 7 August 1936, Page 9

PUBLIC WORKS.

EMPLOYMENT FOR 20,000.

MR. COATES CURIOUS.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Thursday.

As a former Minister of Public Works, Mr. Coates dealt with the Government'!? extended public works programme in the financial debate in the House tonight. He quoted from the Budget the reference to the fact that the moneys required for this financial year for an expanded public works programme were available without any loan issue.

That was, in itself, he said, the fullest evidence that the financial resources of the Dominion had not been utilised to the fullest extent, and it rested with the Minister of Finance to explain that a little more. Did it mean that balances in the hands of the Post Office and other Departments' were to be used to carry out public works and that any necessary adjustments were to be made to those balances by borrowing from the Reserve Bank ? Those were points that the country was entitlad to know. Was the Government drying up all its reserves in order to carry out its public works programme?

"I understand that the Minister of Public Works proposes to handle somewhere about 20,000 • men," said Mr. Coates. "I do not think that ten and a half millions will look at 20,000 men. Wages represent only about half the cost and the other half has to go into material and equipment." Mr. Coates wanted to know exactly where the Government proposed to draw the line between men and machinery. He pointed out that there were occasions where machinery could be a most expensive form of construction. There still remained the old wheelbarrow and the old shovel.