DEFENCE FIRST

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 44, 21 February 1942, Page 9

DEFENCE FIRST

CLAIM ON LABOUR

CONSTRUCTION OF CAMPS

(P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, Feb. 20

"We need all the man-power available for the next few weeks to meet the requirements of the Defence Department for buildings and defence work generally," said the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Armstrong) today.

He was pleased to say that various local bodies during the visit he 'had I just completed to Oamaru, Timaru, Ashburton, and Dunedin, while making representations to have urgent work of their own done, had not pressed hard in the matter because they realised the position. "Tonight I shall be attending a meeting of the Builders' Association," he added, "to have a talk to them about getting on with the job of constructing new camps as rapidly as possible, and to do that we will have to. utilise the labour of men now engaged on housebuilding,; Builders themselves, as far as is reasonably possible, will have the work allocated among them. . Both skilled and-unskilled labour-will have to be diverted to defence for- some weeks to come.. The job is there to be done and we have got to get ahead with it." ■

State housing work in Christchurch would also have to ease off temporarily or possibly come to a standstill. It was a case either of co-operation or stupid competition for the labour available. There was not enough for all the work.