MINISTER OF PUBLIC WORKS.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVI, Issue 142, 24 August 1938, Page 3

MINISTER OF PUBLIC WORKS.

Visit to Waipawa. Describes Operations of His Departments. A Ministerial visit to Waipawa is quite an event, as was strikingly evidenced by the very large audience which assembled in the Municipal Theatre last evening to listen to an address delivered by the Hon. R. Semple, Minister of Public Works and Transport. Before eight o’clock every seat in the theatre was occupied, and late comers had to be content with standing room only.

The Mayor (Mr F. Eagle) presidei uid briefly introduced the Ministei 1 1 Semple, he said, had attained hi; n if ion by sheer ability and force of i acter, and one cou)d not but adiire him for it. '" r E. L. Cullen, M.P. for Hawke’s •■l' deputised for Mr H. M. Christie, • member for the distinct, and ex-re-'od the hope that when the numwent up at the general election < hristie would still be memWaipawa. (Applause). The " <*i’ paid tribute to the manner in ! ;i Mr Semple had re-organised ii> •’ublie Works Department, and aallv thanked him for his splen(l work in the restoration of ' in Hawke’s Bay after the disitrnus floods. TI Minister said he proposed to two particular departments of till'* and try to demonstrate their ip nice. He did not intend to am over the field of politics or id' prognostications as to the t He considered that when a eiir became a Minister he became no ' mal official, responsible to all <ti of the community. He had cn ' fused of being a spendthrift ini r, but he had endeavored to [ • best results for the departpnf he controlled. Transport in px days of national and interiti<" I competition represented one t! greatest things in economic fe. That competition had deveppd ■ 'Uch a degree as to be fierce it general ramifications. Machon ad passed through various ia>i of evolution until to-day it. i' near perfection as possible, le i dern methods of travel had ado <• world a very small place, pars iro it took months to travel itwr .Yew Zealand and England, id n f the other day a girl covered le di ‘anee in a few days. The otor ;ir had revolutionised the sysm o; nnd transport, and New Zeand *> the second highest motored <■> ntry in the world. Con:huiing, Mr Semple said that lere ere 30,000 more ears on the tad l:.'t Easter than the previous aster. In 1935, 03,000,000 gallons ! bei ’ne were consumed, but two »ar« bd.er the consumption was 82,W.OOn an increase of 19,000,000 gains. The capital invested in 19273 w.*i' C 89,000,000 and in 10 years fe li d increased to £148,000,000. torini: the same two periods the veraia ileage a head of population ad inf?cased from 800 miles a year a IAJ7-28 to over IGOO miles in 837-38, or an increase of 100 per ent. in 10 years. 11l :HWAY SLAUGHTER. “I ti ' k that these figures demontiato i fact that we cannot escape iom lr ing to build modern highways in order to give expression to kphei. menal development made by wad ti; .'port,” he said. “Such a fositioi; : not confined to New Zeaind a!* but is world-wide, and a fehty T problem has to be tackled. IHien I "ok over control as the Minta of Transport I found that we We K too many people. The Bopfliti : on the highways was simply ■jpallh and tremendous. In the Ken \ before I took office 1250 Ifople vo v. killed and 35,000 injured ■roar] incidents. During the last iirteon airs the casualties from sad ac- o uts, if sent to the hospitals c the i* i time would have occupied thi> "d< in the hospitals of our sentry i fact, they were even Rater t! an that of the Great War. Word it to the law of averages at tot time one member in every family [four v.as destined to be killed by totor accident. To meet this grow■g trail the roads must he moderntof Tt ■ as a problem that every nttrv ’ :d to face. The speaker 'tnt on 'a lofcr to a British deletion i ll visited Germany, and ® i!' linn, he said, reported tough dug Britain to adopt Gertov'- ling system, which they toidc: to be the best in the ■H, !." roads New Zealand was ■Wiiur ' re not for to-day or toWow. for 50 years hence. In “ the McLean Act was passed in ** Zen nd allowing the first motor 1 to . rate in the country. The IN lii" was 12 miles an hour. It a revolutionary move. In 1912 [first Ml cough trip was made beAuckland and Wellington, the taken being eight days. The "' !( 1 spi ed record in 1898 was 39 ur. To-day it was 311 ksau hour. That, said Mr Semple, *** soiii. . ica of the wonderful de--B®ent of speed. In 1935 there tte 214,1100 ears in the Dominion. had increased to 201,000 in Dett&W, 1917, an increase of 47,000 1 two years. FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE. Wing ir» aviation Mr Semple said 1 “ought new problems for the 'lion to face. “We are living in a world. We don’t want to go ' tow, bn t someone might want to jto war with us.” The best means defence in New Zealand was in * air , and that meant more machto oioiv aerodromes, more hangars, ' More pilots. In these days of

1 mecnanism, ne continued, there was ■ no need for “forming fours”; it was no good having men and youths firing “pop-guns” at an enemy that was standing miles off at sea dropping shells on our cities, or releasing scores of bombing ’planes. What was wanted was an air force that could go out and meet the attack and pay compound interest for what had been given. For this it was necessary to have military aerodromes, commercial services, ground engineers and services, to train New Zealand boys if possible, and it was possible if given the proper instruction and opportunity; hangars had to be constructed and up-to-date machines purchased. “Nothing but the best and the very latest will do,” he declared. “But it all means commitments and presents problems that we must meet, consider and eventually solve if we are to keep abreast of the times and preserve our country.” The Department also had to take into consideration the safety aspects of the road question. When he took office there was no organisation. It was a ease of “Rafferty’s rules,” with over three hundred different sets of by-laws. The traffic inspector was generally the poundkeeper, the nuisance inspector, etc. The Department had changed all that, and now a single set of traffic rules governed from Auckland to the Bluff. In addition everything possible had been done to make the people trafficminded. THE MOTOR AGE. Concerning the expenditure of public money on road construction, Mr Semple said that the charge of being spendthrifts had been made against him and the present Government. The Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Adam Hamilton, has said that “he was going to hell for leather down the hill with the brakes off.” The answer to this was that “we must go forward, or backward, and we prefer to go forward.” “The motor car has made wonderful changes in road transport,” he said. “New Zealand is the second highest country in the world as regards ownership of ears, there being one ear to every five people in the country. The one higher country is America, and I want to point out that in New Zealand ears cost twice as much as they do in America and benzine is only 6d a gallon over there. If we could make our purchases at the same price the Yanks wouldn’t see which way we went.” “When I took office,” continued Mr Semple, “I found that the Government had vested its powers in a Co-ordination Board for the control of transport, and that there were 36 licensing authorities running around the country. My first brush with that Board was my last, and arising from that little episode came the well-known ‘ running-shoes ’ expression. There was no co-ordination, no control,” he declared. “It was costig £3OOO a year to keep the Board. I amended the law and appointed four authorities, and I am the final person to appeal to. And I want to say that it does not take me five minutes in a fortnight to do what it was costing this country £3OOO to do before I took office.” With that Board out. of the way the Department were able to do things, and to-day New Zealand was in the proud position of having the lowest road death-rate in the world. He had received letters from England and America congratulating the people of the Dominion on their achievement. New Zealand’s road death-rate was 8.8 per 10,000, whilst Italy was the highest with 51.10 per 10,000. NOT INFALLIBLE. In bringing the main parts of his address to a close Mr Semple said he had no objections to sane and rational criticism. No man was infallible. A good, hearty tongue - thrashing sometimes helped to keep a man on the rails. “But slander we do object to, common filthy slander. I did not come to dip into the garbage tin to-night. I will leave that to others and will keep on the clean track. I am not here to criticise Mr Hamilton or his policy. He hasn’t got one.” (Laughter). The present Government, continued the speaker, did not start railways and then stop the work. The previous Government started eight and finished none. They borrowed £8,000,000 and paid £3,500,000 in interest, and what have they to show for it 1 Nothing hut rust and chaos and poverty. They hadn’t the courage to admit their mistake; they sold out, lock, stock, and barrel. Sold everything they could for a song, and what they couldn’t sell they threw away. It was a glaring criminal waste of money. “It was a monument of wickedness, the like of which had never been perpetrated before and had I been associated with it I would have wanted to he like the ostrich, for I haven’t the hide thick enough to stand up and talk about squandering public money aftey a thing like that,” PROGRESS BY PICTURES. By a s«ri#» of moving pictwt* JJi*

Minister then showed his audience what had been accomplished during the past three years in the development and modernising of the Public Works Department’s plant. The work l done by the bulldozers, tractors, excavators, etc., was an eye-opener to those who have not seen these implements at work. The film also depicted the old methods of man-power and wheelbarrows. One picture showed 28 able-bodied men hauling a roller for consolidating an aerodrome. This picture, the Minister declared, the newspapers were afraid to publish, forgetful of the fact, apparently, that it was published in a Wellington paper over two years ago. The films also gave glimpses of the devastation wrought in the Esk Valley by this year’s floods. “MASTERS OF THE SITUATION.” “Those pictures,” said the Minister in conclusion, “show the activities of the Public Works and Transport Departments. At the end of this year you will have the opportunity of saying whether this policy should be continued or not. It rests with you to say. You are masters of the situation, thanks to those who fought for democracy in centuries that have gone. You will be empanelled as the great jury to pass judgment upon us. I don't profess to be a super man, I don’t pfofess to be infallible, only a worker endeavoring to apply to some of the world’s problems knowledge gained in the world’s workshops. To give is one of the greatest things in life. Whatever your verdict may he we will accept it with a smile and with dignity.” A resolution recording confidence in the Minister and thanks to Mr Cullen for his attendance, moved by Mr J. Holdsworth and seconded by Mr J. Ericksen, was carried by general acclamation. Subsequently Mr and Mrs Semple, the Mayor, and others were entertained to supper by the local branch of the Labor Party, and the function gave members an opportunity of coming into closer contact with the Minister.