BY MAN-POWER

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4012, 11 August 1931, Page 7

BY MAN-POWER

MALTA LIKES WORK AVOIDING UNEMPLOYMENT Malta’s solution of the unemployment problem, or rather its acceptance of inconveniences and expense to avoid unemployment, is described in a letter from a resident of Valetta to a Wellington relative. Malta is evidently by no means over-mechanical, and apparently is all the happier. “ This little island,” he "writes, “ is one of the most densely populated spots in the world, and is becoming more so, as the people will not leave it. Consequently it is thousands of years behind in many things, as the introduction of machinery, etc., would throw so many out of their jobs. The ships lie in the harbour, and you have to go off to them

in boats, and they are unloaded into barges which are towed alongside. The water is deep right up to the rocky shore, and they could easily come alongside, and could be reached by a gangway. This would throw all these boats and barge men out of a job, and that the Government dares not do, so everybody is put to the expense and inconvenience of boats and barges. “ They have just completed a new entrance road into Valetta. Formerly the entrance was over the old drawbridge, with narrow gate arches in the fortifications. Traffic was thus much held up, so they built a big bridge over the immense ditch, and carried a newopen road over the wall. I watched all this with great interest, as they carried out the work in much the same way that they built the Pyramids in Egypt thousands of years ago. Not a single wheelbarrow or crane was employed. The excavators split up the rock with wedges, and raked it into little baskets, and a string of men tarried these away. All the stones for the building of the arches were cut with tools like axes and planed smooth by hand. They were then slung on chains from poles, ancMialf a dozen men shouldered them and carried them up inclined planks to their destination. If they had blasted the rock and had a few cranes and wheelbarrows not cue quarter of the labour would have been necessary. “It is the same in everything. A one-man job is made to provide work for two if possible. Even in watering the streets they have a man driving a barrel of water with a loose pipe hanging out behind. A rope is tied to the end of the pipe, and another man walks beliind with the rope in his hand, swing ing it from side to side. Curiously enough, they also have the very latest motor watering wagon, but they don’t seem to use it often.”