VALUE FOR WAGES.

Evening Star, Issue 22413, 10 August 1936, Page 11

VALUE FOR WAGES.

TO Tax EDITOR. Sir,—Whether the country is or is not to get full value for the increased wages paid to the men who will be employed on the Government’s scheme of public works remains to be seen. The Minister of Public Works (Hon. B. Semple), speaking in the House of Representatives on Friday last, said:— The waggs paid during the slump were no incentive to men to do their best, and the Works Department had to take all the men sent from the unemployment bureaux, whether suitable or not. It was his experience that under such conditions men reduced their efficiency and speed according to the reward they received, but he knew that when men were adequately paid there were no better workers in the world than New Zealanders. He was not blaming anybody for it, but on 10s a day our men learned to go slow. Now it was intended to bring the men back to a higher standard of efficiency. It is to_ be hoped that the hon. gentleman is not too optimistic, but there is reason to think this he is. It is my custom to indulge in peregrinations in the outskirts of the city, and I have observed that the majority of the men I have seen who are employed on relief work do little, if any, more work at present under the City Council’s subsidised scheme than they did when receiving the lower scale of pay. ’Will the Minister of Public Works have a similar experience? Most probably he will, notwithstanding that “ there were no better workers in the world than New Zealanders.”—l am, etc., Doubtful. August 10.