RELIEF OR STANDARD WORKS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 3 December 1929, Page 5

RELIEF OR STANDARD WORKS.

STATEMENT PROM PUBLIC WORKS MINISTER. ; (By Telfigraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A definite statement that it was impossible to employ permanetly all the men employed on railway construction work was made by the Public Works Minister to a deputation representiag •the New Zealand Workers' Union. He told Mr Cook, the secretary, that if the Government's hands were forced there would be no alternative, but to dismiss the men at once. The onus must be on Mr Cook himself. The Minister denied that any instructions had gone out that any standard works should be brought down to the standard of relief works. It was only the promise of the Government to find work for everybody that led to placing relief workers in railway camps. Apparently, said the Hon. A. R. Ransom in answering one of Mr Cook's questions, you are more concerned about holidaye and xo on than about finding men work. It seems to me that onco a man is placed on relief works he sets about to mako it a standard job and stick there. If it was found possiblo to retain men they, would be made standard employees, but if it was not they would have to be found work elsewhere or else discharged.