MINISTER AND BARROW.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 95, 20 March 1940, Page 10

MINISTER AND BARROW.

PRACTICAL TIME TEST. Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, March IS. Stripped to the singlet, Hon. R. Semple worked on the Burwood golf course this afternoon with a longhandled shovel and a wheelbarrow on a time test to shift a given quantity of light soil which was reported to have taken two men a full day to handle. Although the Minister had done no manual work for years, he shifted the spoil in exactly ten minutes. , , , r For all his 67 years and lack of recent experience between the shafts of a barrow which ho has condemned as a relic Mr Semple made fairly easy work of his self-imposed job. “I prefer to 6ee for myself how the ]ob can be done,” he explained. “I never ask another man to do a job for me if it i 6 sticky and I cannot do it myself. Asked by Hon. P. C. Webb, who was detained in Wellington on waterfront business, to investigate complaints of unsatisfactory work by No. 13 Scheme men on the Burwood golf course, Mr Semple made an unannounced visit to the work this morning. The complaints which he investigated were that the rate of progress was becoming progressively slower and that action was needed. To satisfy myself that some of the charges were well-based M.r Semple paid another visit to the course in the afternoon after the men had gone home, this time dressed in a khaki shirt,’ flannel trousers and old shoes, and carried out his own test. What Ins opinions were of the work at Burwood Mr Semple would not say publicly to-day. All lie would say was that his investigation had led him to believe that the job was costing far too much and that the work of the men was definitely unsatisfactory. “I was not bustled when I shifted that six barrow loads in 10 minutes, lie added, “and I know I could keep that rate up at a Chinese jog-trot all day.