SAVING IN COSTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 116, 18 May 1937, Page 3

SAVING IN COSTS.

NEW CONSTRUCTION METHOD

HON K. SEMPLES DEFENCE.

The claim that modein methods of construction saved the Public Works Department from 30 to 80 per cent was made by the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. K. Semple) in a luncheon address to business executives of the city. For the introduction of these methods, he said, he had been criticised. He wished that those who voiced the criticism would first examine the facts he had to offer.

Owing to the forces of the depression, said the Minister, when the present Government took over the Public Works Department was equipped practically entirely with picks, shovels end wheelbarrows.

'"Who wants to push a irheelharTow all his life*" he asked, as there came a ripple of laughter. He had pushed a wheelbarrow and he knew what heartbreaking work and how slow and unnecessary it was.

As the result of the introduction of new machinery and modern methods the Nelson aerodrome, which was estimated to cost £170.000, could now be completed for £35.000, and it would be finished in IS months instead of three years. l"ii to March 31 last. £600.000 "had been spent, on aerodrome and emergency landing constructions in the Dominion. I nder the present system a major portion of that work could have been done for £2O0 : O0O. The whole chain of airports from the North Cape to the Blnff could have been completed for that £000.000 and done quicker and better. Costs Saved. Wisrram aerodrome, which had eo~t £70.000 to build, could have been built for £15.000. declared Mr. Seniple. In some cases costs could be reduced by SO per cent, and the "moral average ■was 30 per cent. Soil shifting, which had previously cost 4/6 a yard could now l>o done in some cases for under 10d a yard, and that included wear and tear on machines, running costs and the cost of labour.

Mr. Semple drew a picture contrasting the slavery of old-time construction work and of the modern with "a young man pulling a lever and singing like hell" as he shifted hills and rock by inechanical means. It was said that he was displacing labour. That was not a fact. Certainly, fewer men were being required on certain jobs, but the money that was being saved allowed other men to be engaged on other works, giving li:. , country four or five assets instead of one at the same cost, and doing the work so quickly that the costs were further reduced by the fact that the jobs were paying interest at a time when they would previously have been still under construction.