BUILDING OF SCHOOLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIVIII, Issue 17684, 20 January 1921, Page 6

BUILDING OF SCHOOLS.

DEPARTMENT'S TROUBLES. EFFECT OF GO-SLOW POLICY. [BT TEXEOBAPH. —PEES 3 ASSOCIATION.} ■WELLINGTON. Wednesday. The Minister for Education, Hon. C. J. Parr, referred to-day to the difficulties the Department had experienced in building schools through lack of cement and other necessary materials. Grants totalling £30,000 had been made six months ago for two schools in the Wellington Province. One was not started yet, and the other was being delayed, the men having been discharged because the contractor could not get cement. This was in spite of repeated appeals by the Education Board to the Board of Trade. Arrangements were now made for these two buildings to proceed without further delay. "We can't build schools without cement and we can't get cement if the men at Taupiri and other mines go slow," said Mr. Parr. " One result of the go-slow policy therefore is the eirfbarrassment of the Education Department in the construction of schools." The Board of Trade, he added, had been very fair in allowing the Health and Education Departments to build hospitals and schools without special applications for permits. Hospitals and schools had been placed next in urgency to workers' homes, but this gave no priority call on cement and other materials. It might soon be a question as to whether his two Departments should not be given a prior right.