PUBLIC WORKS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 21 December 1936, Page 8

PUBLIC WORKS

NO PLACE FOR UNDESIRABLES MINISTER IS EMPHATIC (United Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH, 18th December. '■There is no room - for scroungers, criminals'or loafers in the Public Works Department, and we are not going to have the riff-raff of the country drifting into it. We want to keep public .works an institution where decent men can earn their living by hard work without fear of having their good name spoiled by association with any undesirables.” In these terms the Minister of Public Works, Hon. R. Semple, commented in an address to construction gangs at the Ashley River protection works on rumours that he had victimised certain employees of the department.

Mr Semple said lie had never victimised anybody, but he admitted that he had sacked men who had no right to associate with decent, dean-living workmen. There was no reason why the man who wore dungarees should not bo a gentleman, for he was engaged in most essential work which was fundamentally necessary in increasing the productive capacity of the Dominion. “We are at the moment the custodians of the public purse,’ ’Mr Semple added, “and we are going on the course we have planned without any turning back. We shall do this in spite of the criticism of the street-corner spittoon philosopher and snivelling scrounger or the protests of that over-developed parasite the stock exchange gambler. No man lias' any claim on the nation’s production unless he pulls lug weight and renders some service as an individual unit.”