DEFENCE BUILDING PROGRAMME

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23947, 14 May 1943, Page 4

DEFENCE BUILDING PROGRAMME

REVERSION TO CONTROL BY MINISTER (P.A.) WELLINGTON, May 13. “The functions exercised by the Minister of Public Works and the Minister of Housing Construction have been combined, and now come under single ministerial control,’’ said the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) 10-night, referring to the recent announcement that the Hon. R. Semple had been appointed Minister of Works. Mr Fraser added that the work of the defence construction council would also be absorbed in the general construction programme of the Ministry of Works. This council had achieved its object of accelerating progress on vital armed services work within the Dominion and in the Pacific, and it was the desire of the Government that the remainder of the programme should now revert* to ministerial control for the purpose of co-ordinating that programme with other forms of constructional activity that lay immediately ahead. Although security reasons had hitherto made it impossible to do so, it was now hoped to give at an early date some indication of the magnitude of the work carried out by the defence construction council in the last year or so. The speed of the construction, and the results generally attained had greatly Exceeded the expectations of the Government when the council was first set up. As an example of co-ordinated effort it was a testimony to the ability of the Government’s constructional departments and the various employers and workmen concerned. Mr Fraser also paid a tribute to the drive and capacity for organisation of the defence construction commissioner. Mr James Fletcher.