AN OFFICIAL REPLY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 69, 18 September 1930, Page 8

AN OFFICIAL REPLY

The correspondent's letter was submitted to the Controller-General of Prisons (Mr. B. L. Dallard), who referred to the reply given by tho Minister in Charge of Prisons to the deputation which had waited upon tho Minister on points similar to those raised by Mr. Pritchard. Mr. Dallard said that from information he had received there appeared to be some misunderstanding about the true position among market gardeners in the Hutt Valley. The prison's supply to tho market in Wellington had the full approval of the Retail Fruit Traders' Association. There was a dearth of locally-grown produce, and. a largo proportion of the vegetables supplied to the markets came from places outside Wellington. No one could say there was a surplus of vegetabes locally, and that vegetables -were unreasonably cheap. The quantity of vegetables supplied from the prison camp at Trentham was not large, and competition was not affected to any extent.

It might be said, stated Mr. Dallard, that prison labour was cheap, but actually that was not the position. Prisoners had to be maintained. and supervised, and under tho system operating in New Zealand the welfare o£ their dependants was not neglected. It was necessary from the Department's point of view to employ the prisoners profitably, and the policy in this connection was to provide work which would result in a minimum of friction in the secondary industries of the country. In this way, too, taxation was kept down. Gardening was particularly suitable in prison camps; it was healthy and had a beneficial effect physically and mentally, and another point waa that young and old could be employed.