DEEP RESENTMENT AT WAIOURU

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 290, 8 December 1939, Page 6

DEEP RESENTMENT AT WAIOURU

REPORTED REFUSAL TO WORK NO TRUTH IN IT. SAYS P.W.D. ENGINEER MILITARY TASKS WERE SEPARATE “So far as I am aware no military man and no Public Works man refused duty at the Waiouru military camp,” said Mr. G. W. Sampson, district Public Works engineer at Wanganui, when reports published in Auckland and Wellington, alleging that Public Works employees refused to work with military engineers, were referred to him. “Those reports were wrong from beginning to end,” he said. Mr. Sampson explained that the task of building Waiouru military camp, one of the biggest and the quickest executed in 'the Dominion, had been arranged so that the Public Works Department did lhe buildings, drainage and general work of that nature, while the military had to put up thn tents and handle the tent floor hoards. That work of laying the floor boards meant that the military had to unload ’ them on arrival at the camp. In addition, timber arrived for the building of a bridge which lhe engineers have put up as a military achievement. Perhaps a Misconception People, seeing the military handling their limber and the Public Works men handling theirs, might have believed that the two were doing the same work, but such was not the case. Mr. Sampson said. The military forces were engaged on military work. It was said at one stage, however, that, as the engineers had more men than they needed, the Public Works Department should be asked whether It could cm play them. A reply was given that the men could be absorbed if it was absolutely necessary, more particularly for cleaning up work. A good deal of cleaning up work was done by the Public Works Department, some of it which perhaps need not have been done, such as filling in depressions and general levelling. It was possible, Mr. Sampson added, that conversation in the camp had taken place and was critical of the military forces having been brought, there before the Public Works task had been finished and that that criticism had given rise to the published reports. But it was wrong to say that men refused to work. “Every man who was on that camp job worked well,” Mr. Sampson said. “They have done a good job and they should be entitled to credit for it.” A Carpenter’s Version A man who returned from Waiouru to Wanganui last night, after having 1 been on the job about a month, also stated that there was little in the reports which alleged that men refused to work. “Then men are very indignant about what has been pullished about them, he said, "very indignant, indeed, and they have communicated with Mr. Semple.” Asked if he knew what could have given rise to such reports, he said that it was only natural that when two gangs of men were at work in the same locality, one getting anything up to 30s a day and the other, in military uniform, only getting 7s or a little more, there was bound to be criticism. That criticism, travelling the rounds of the camp, magnified as it was bound to be. \vould make good material, but behind it all there was very little. It v. 4 as not right, he said, nor fair, to say that men refused work and that, as the result of the refusal, the troops had lost, leave, or were in any way delayed. He believed that a suggestion had been made for engineers to dig drains, but that was not done. The reason for it not being done was not that anybody refused to work. It had been pointed out that there were probably many men looking for work from outside of the camp I who would be glad of the job.