£600,000 to be Spent on ’Dromes

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 232, 2 October 1935, Page 4

£600,000 to be Spent on ’Dromes

Work for Unemployed OTHER IMPORTANT SCHEMES ANNOUNCED Per Press Association. NEW PLYMOUTH, Last Night. Hon. S. G. Smith, Minister for Employment, to-day announced a further instalment of the Dominion-wide programme of works which the'Unemployment Board in collaboration with various departments has been working on for several months.

A striking project in which Mr Smith has found an Opportunity of expressing his practical interest in aviation while seeking- to provide useful and payable employment for men nowon relief works, is a comprehensive plan for the construction of a string of lorty aerodromes and sixty-four landing grounds estimated to eost £600,000, ot: which the labour cost will be paid by the Unemployment Board. The scheme ensures the completion of aerodromes and of landing -grounds already in course of construction, and provides for the commencement of a much larger number. They are planned from data and expert advice made available by the Public Works and Defence Departments to extend from Waipapakauri in the Far North to Stewart Island. The works will be carried out ou a full-time or rationed basis according to the absence or extent of unemployment in the areas concerned. , The proposed landing grounds being mostly in places where there is no considerable amount ot unemployment will be g uierai'v. on a, fulltime basis.

An important feature i rum't he viewpoint of the men who will be engaged is that the labour w ill bo paid: for on a basis of 12s per day for married men and 9s for single men. Commenting ou the scheme, the Minister said it was aa endeavour to meet the growing needs of aviation as a means of transport and would divert a considerable amount of public funds towards the provision of what had become necessary to the stage of reliability at which the complete failure of a machine while in the' air was practically unknown and the principal requisite to complete safety was the provision of adequate landing grounds along the air routes.

Other proposals accepted' by the Unemployment Board as suitable for the receipt of substantial labour cost assistance from its funds include the destruction and removal of willows from the Hoteo river (Ohura) and three of its tributaries to eliminate flood dangers from largo areas of agricultural lands; the reclamation of over 1400 acres of mud flats in the North Auckland district; the widening and metalling of the Rotorua-Waikare-moana road as a link through tho Urewera Country to the East Coast; railway curve and grade casements to reduce the operating costs of the State railways; the construction of a new 60-foot by 30-fool bath at the Government hot springs at Morere; the reclamation of 92 acres of tidal flat at the mouth of the Hutt river; the irrigation of 40,000 acres of the Maniototo plains, Central Otago; the. reading and thinning of the State forests: the continuation for. 33 miles of the Westlaud Great South road from Wehcka to Bruce Bay.

A wide range of other works lias also been adopted, including considerable additions to mental hospitals.

"The interests of tho workers have been kept in mind by the Unemployment Board,’’ said Mr Smith, “in tho framing of the programme of works. Apart from the increased rates of pay which will apply, the board has sought as far as possible to avoid the necessity of men having to maintain themselves away from home. * ‘‘Outside of the programme of Government works the local bodies lui'-c been for some time encouraged to seek out and put in hand local works on a full-time standard rate basis with the aid of the 35s a week subsidy for murried men. When it has been necessary owing to lack of such works to look further afield the board has given special attention to projects which would be near enough to permit the men to travel out and back each day, or tailing that, at least to return to their homes frequently. The aerodrome construction programme in particular has been framed with these points in mind.”