A COUNTERMAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 137, 11 June 1940, Page 4

A COUNTERMAND

MEN VERSUS MACHINES

MINISTER'S EXPLANATION

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

HASTINGS, June 10,

How the M.P. for Napier, Mr. W. E. Barnard, unknown to the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. R. Semple, took successful steps to countermand the use of machinery on works con-' nected with the control of the Ngaruroro River and to take on more men instead was explained to the Hawke's Bay Rivers Board today in a letter] from Mr. Semple. The Minister said' the machinery was in Napier or Hastings, and when he was in hospital suffering from a breakdown in health; Mr. Barnard made a vigorous protest to Mr. Fraser, then Acting Prime Min-. ister, against machines being used at all. When Mr. Semple was in Australia the machines were shifted off the job unknown to him.

"The reason why I could not meet you in debate," said Mr. Semple in his letter to the board, "was that I knew the obvious question you would ask me was, 'Who broke, the gentlemen's agreement? Who shifted that machinery?' And I would have been compelled to reply that it was the result of the action of' my colleague, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, when I was indisposed and absent from my office."

Members of the board considered that they had been exonerated irom blame for the prolongation of the job and its increased cost.

"This seems to have developed into a private quarrel between Mr. Semple and Mr. Barnard, and the board does not want to get mixed up in any political row," said Mr, L. E. Harris.

"I am not going to get into any, political argument, bui if Mr. Barnard made representations to have the machinery taken away it should be made known," said the chairman, Mr. C. Lassen, j

The board decided tq make representations to the Labour Department to meet the extra costs involved in the use of manual labour.