LOYALTY TO TOWN URGED

Taranaki Daily News, 11 June 1931, Page 9

LOYALTY TO TOWN URGED

LOCAL LABOUR IN HASTINGS MR. BARTON AGREES WITH MEN; COMMITTEE'S HELT PROMISED. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Hastings, Last Night. Speaking to business men in Hastings this morning Mr. J. S. Barton, S.M., chairman of the rehabilitation committee, referred to the importance of employing local workers in reconstruction. He was entirely in accord with the resolution from the meeting of Hastings working men to the effect that every working man wished to rehabilitate himself as a worker and that when Mr. Barton was granting permission to erect new buildings he should insist that only local labour be engaged as that was the only means by which a working man would be able to rehabilitate himself. Mr. out, however, that it was beyond the powers of the committee to force business people to carry out the request made in the resolution; the only thing the committee could do was to give moral support to the principle that local labour should be employed. It was a matter for those letting contracts to display loyalty to their own town. Mr. Barton was sure other members of the committee would associate themselves with the opinion he had expressed and in making loans for reconstruction it would be on the understanding that local men were to be employed wherever possible.