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1934. NEW ZEALAND.

PUBLIC WORKS STATEMENT (BY THE HON. J. BITCHENER, MINISTER OF PUBLIC WORKS).

Mr. Speaker,— As was the case in the previous year, the activities of my Department during the year under review have been influenced by the continued need for opening up avenues of employment, and it has been possible to keep an average number of eleven thousand men employed on developmental work from which the State will obtain due return. Considerable attention has been paid to the metalling of access roads in the more undeveloped portions of the country rather than to the construction of new roads, and in this direction the past year's efforts constituted a record for the Department, metal having been placed on no less than 577 miles 64 chains of settlement roads. With the financial assistance obtained from the Unemployment Board, it has been possible to carry out a vigorous policy of road-improvement and land development and at the same time to keep the expenditure of capital funds within limits consistent with present conditions. Details of the amount of work carried out in this direction are contained later in this Statement. The policy forecasted in my last Public Works Statement of placing a light coat of metal on those settlement roads carrying only light traffic has been adhered to, and it has been the means of solving the access difficulties of very many settlers who under other circumstances would still have been without a metalled road to their properties. As road-construction is most suitable for the purpose of employing unskilled labour, the larger proportion of the total number of men employed by the Department has been engaged on such work, over 50 per cent, of the total being so employed. Of the remainder the majority has been on hydro-electric construction works, landimprovement, and irrigation works. The extent to which local bodies on the one hand and Government loan funds on the other hand should benefit financially by reason of the Unemployment Board's contribution to the cost of many of the developmental works now in progress has been a matter for consideration. I have endeavoured as far as possible to so arrange the financing of these works that to the extent of the Unemployment Board's assistance both the amount of the Government's loanmoney contribution and the local bodies' contribution have been proportionately decreased. By this arrangement Government loan funds have been conserved and the cost to the county ratepayer of developmental work has been lightened.

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