PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS CAUSES OF DELAY CRITICISM AND REPLY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 153, 26 December 1914, Page 4

PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS CAUSES OF DELAY CRITICISM AND REPLY.

Statements to the effect that the Public Works Department is delaying tho work at the new Parliament Build ings were made by Mr. H. G. Ell, M.P. for Christchurch South, in an interview published in the Lyttelton Times. "Last pay day twelve men were turned off the job, and only a handful aro left," declared Mr. Ell. "Just, imagine a handful of men on a. £100,000 job, when hundreds of building employees in New Zealand are wanting work ' Tens of thousands of bricks artlying in piles around the place, aud j heaps of other material are waiting,, but tho Public Works Department will not ! let tho contractors proceed. They aie keeping them back because o^ the shortage of marble, and they will not allow other parts of the building to go on until this stone comes to hand. Here are men idle and an expensive plant doinec next to nothing, all because the Public Works Department insists upon the walls goin? up at the same pace and the same level all over the building. They could have had the Legislative Chamber finished for next session but for this extraordinary Departmental attitude. All the steelwork for the next two stories is in Wellington, but it cannot bo used. This is the strange way m which the Government carries out its promise to go ahead confidently with public works during the war. The plea of the Department is that if one part is built quicker than another it will throw an undue pressure upon the foundations, but experienced builders say the idea is absolutely silly in view of the enormously strong foundations, which have been in for three years — quite long enough to settle. Practical , people say that the job is being held back because of pernickety nonsense." Speaking to a Post reporter regarding these allegations, the Minister for Public Works (the Hon. W. Fraser) said : " The delay, if any, is one for which the Department is not in any way to blame. It is alleged that in consequence of delay in the supply of marble to the contractors they have been obliged to dispense with stonemasons and bricklayers. This i 3 quite contrary to fact. The truth of the matter is that the responsibility for the supply of granite and marble rests entirely with the contractors. The Department has nothing whatever to do with it. The Department has, however, endeavoured to help the contractors in regard to procuring suitable marble, by sending down experts to the quarry. The difficulty ( has been with the quarry Company, which is a sub-contractor to the contractors, being unable so . far to furnish the contractors with suitable blocks of sound marble of the size required for the columns. So far,' however, the absence of suitable blocks of marble has not delayed the work of bricklaying, as tho concrete floors have not yet been laid to permit of the bricks being erected, and the architect is of opinion that these floors will not be finished for another month; so that the statement about tho work being kept back through any action of the Department is absolutely contrary to fact."