MR. SEMPLE'S COMMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24690, 16 September 1943, Page 4

MR. SEMPLE'S COMMENT

SCORES OF COMPLAINTS "CAN STAND ON HEADS" The remarks of Mrs. M. M. Dreaver in a recent broadcast concerning civil servants were referred to bv the Minister of Works, the Hon. 11. Scrapie, in an address to a large audience at Northcote last night. "It was never Mrs. Dreaver's intention to indict the civil servants," said Mr. Semple. "In the attack made on her by the press her remarks have been magnified and exaggerated a thousandfold. There are some people in all walks of life who do not know how to play the game. It is that kind in_ the civil service Mrs. Dreaver was hitting at. As Minister of Railways I had scores of complaints from people about some civil servants who did not the game with the travelling public. Those servants were only a handful in the sex-vice. The same applied to the State Advances Department, where a few individuals in the service insulted people who wanted to make homes for themselves. It was those people and not the rank and file Mrs. Dreaver was referring to. "The public servant had no civil rights when we took over," added the Minister. "To-day he can stand for Parliament, or stand on his head, if he likes, so long as he does his job. We do not care what views he holds so long as he does his duty to the public. The man who stood for Mr. Lee in Christchurch is a civil servant. He got leave and undertook his campaign, and after it was over returned to his job."

Speaking later at the same meeting, Mrs. Dreaver said her statements had been twisted and misconstrued. "I did not' attack the civil servants," she said. "I attacked those who did not treat people with the civility thev deserved." She referred particularly to some of the younger officers of the Social Security Department. HOSPITAL POLICY REPLY TO CRITICISM STATEMENT BY MINISTER (P.A.) OAMARU, Wednesday The Minister of Health, the Hon. A. H. Nordmeyer, commented to-day on remarks reported to have been made by the chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board, Mr. Allan J. Moody, concerning the refusal of the department to permit the erection of a nurses' home at a certain place in the hospital grounds. The board's proposal was to provide 45 additional beds. The proposal was not agreed to for very good reasons, said the Minister. In the first place it was suggested that bedrooms should be of 80 square feet, whereas 90 square feet was regarded as the minimum and 100 the standard. No baths were provided, there were no sitting rooms, there was no heating and many rooms were sunless. Some rooms wore overlooked by patients in adjoining wards and would seriously interfere with the view from those wards. Alternative proppsals outlined to the board by the DirectorGeneral of Health, Dr. M. H. Watt, were that a two-storeyed home in the same material as the board suggested should be erected at a more suitable site and could be used permanently for junior nurses or maids. The chairman's reference to political control and failure to heed the advice of experts, the Minister added, came strangely from the chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board. FEAR COMPLEX CASE RESULT OF ACCIDENT An appeal against her direction to employment with W. H. Enstone, Limited, was made by Miss S. P. Reid, a munition hand, before tho Auckland Manpower (Industrial) Committee yesterday. Appellant stated that while she was formerly in a munition factory she, had had an accident which resulted in the loss of a joint of a finger. Since then she had been nervous about working with machinery. "This fear complex resulting from accidents is well known to insurance companies," said Mr. K. M. Simpson, a member of tho committee. The appeal was allowed, the chairman of the committee, Mr. J. 0. Liddell, stating that attention would be paid to appellant's attitude to machinery when slie was directed to other work. MUSEUM EXHIBITS "The past two months have been busy in returning to the museum collections that have been stored in the country for safe-keeping," stated the report of the director of the Auckland Institute and Museum, Dr. Gilbert Archey, presented at yesterday's meeting of the council. Five truckloads sufficed to bring back the material, the report continued, including library books and periodicals. To reabsorb the material speedily, student helpers were engaged, and already the rearrangement of exhibits was well under way. SCHOOL DENTAL CLINICS (0.C.) ROTORTJA. Wednesday Tho opinion that tho time had arrived when tho Government should make school dental treatment entirely freo was expressed at a meeting of the Rotorua Dental Clinic Committee by the chairman, Mr. T. Jackson, last evening. The chairman said that under the present arrangements dental clinic committees were required to meet onethird of the capital cost of erection of clinic buildings and yet at no time had they any equity in the buildings. Since a recent amendment of the regulations, which deprived the committees of treatment fees and replaced them with small departmental subsidies which were in many cases barely sufficient to cover general upkeep expenses, committees were unable to accumulate any funds for capital expenditure.