SCHEME 13

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 21, 24 July 1940, Page 5

SCHEME 13

DETAILS GIVEN

8459 MEN EMPLOYED

The total number of men at present employed under Scheme 13 is 8459, according to figures given in the House of Representatives last evening by the Minister of Labour (the Hon. P. C. Webb) in reply to a question from the Leader of the Opposition (the Hon. Adam Hamilton), when the Labour Department Vote was being discussed. Of these, the Minister explained, 4504 were employed at full-time wages by various local bodies on streets and reserves, over half of them being employed in the cities.

Award rates of pay were given and the jobs went to men who were unable to get work in other avenues of industry. "Before a man is put on this scheme the Department has to be convinced that no one wants to employ him," he continued.

Under Scheme 13, 752 men were employed on drainage, continued the Minister, and 532 on river protection schemes. On sewerage and water supply schemes the number of men employed was 527. They were mainly in small towns which could not raise sufficient funds to install the necessary systems, their only chance of having those amenities being assistance from the Government.

Men were employed in other classes of work as follows:—School grounds improvements, 495; social amenities, including baths for schools, 242; treeplanting, 184; land development, 162; railway works, 109; noxious weeds eradication, 76; rabbiting, 11; miscellaneous, 743. The total number of men so employed was 8459. EFFECT ON FARM WORK.

He could assure the Leader of the Opposition that the employment of these men was not affecting the farm labour problem. At July 12 last there were 66 men under 20 years of age and 871 over ; 20 years of age/and 2112 married men, all of them experienced, available for farm labour, while the total vacancies numbered 292. Of inexperienced men available 80 were under 20, 1223 over 20, and 2147 were married. They were all available for farm work and there were 178 vacancies. One of the difficulties was the provision of accommodation on the farms. Scheme 13 men were not a pack of scroungers and loafers, but some of them were not fit to earn a living wage under private employment, as they were "burnt-out" soldiers and others who could not get a job. Some were over 60 years of age, but they had wives under that age and children under 16 years of age. Some people thought that because a man could not swing a shovel he was not entitled to a job. If a genuine case was presented It Sr^omtoffhJwork w as PlS the man. Some of the work was not "SV* S? .nmfof b6 thn c ZL? b«Sv scheme and some of the local body supervision had not commended itself to him, but the Government was not the employing authority, and the responsibility was with those who employed the men, but on the whole the local bodies had responded splendidly. "The only alternative to the scheme is the dole," concluded Mr. Webb. "We have had experience of that in the past in other parts of the world and we do not want it here."