MINISTER'S ADDRESS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 197, 9 August 1940, Page 5

MINISTER'S ADDRESS

. . #|5| «VES ; "• , i ' • '■• — " ' -.'I WORK: OF -THE:r£>.W.D. " * ' _ The Hon. R. Semple, who arrived, in Whakatane yesterday morning, and heard several deputations • in the Borough Chambers, gave aft in-" teresting account of the activities of the Public- Works Department since the introduction of the laboursaving machinery;- ? =■" 'The Minister was officially: welcomed by His Worship the flavor, Mr B. S. Barry, and later /by th 6 County; Chairman, Mr :J. L. Burnett; Others present were: IVJessrs £. (j, (CCui'ily Clerk), C. H. Brebner (County Engineer), D. V. Saund ers (Town' Clerk),-W-. A. 1 McCiracken, S. S. Shapley, R. W. Scho"'flehl, W. Sullivan, G. H: Rand W. Bi'id^ci 4 , R.. F. Smith, A. J. Canning, F. IVinhy, and representatives from country districts. The speakers were antMduced. bj' Mr A. F. Moncur, M.P., who is watching the interests-of* tliisfvpart of< the Bay of Plenty electorate fin the absence with of/Meil?. tenant A. G. Hultqiiist, M.P. Response, * • Responding, the Minjste'r express-' edi his thanks for the cheerful and sincere welcome. One of those important things in a primary ducing country was the construction of an up-ito-date roading system, which was necessary to gain? quick access to' the goods produced in all parts of the Dominion. .: : Wiiei» he first rtook office he had come to the conclusion ..that, in order to the utmost 1 benefit from primary' procluceijs -it Kvas' imperative to scrap the;/old i ; and, build a new one! worthy of the; fertility of New Zealand. He had been called a spendthrift and arts . irresponsible when he launched out upon a scheme for the introduction of the latest machinery, for. road-making. lie \vsis accustomed to that and could always' be depended upon to . call a few ;names back. The machinery had proved to be a-bless-ing in disguise and. had enabledthis -country to make amazing prdgress since 1935:;. 'He-* had Kfeen cised fot buying Tr6m : a so-called'; foreign country but the U.S.A. was not, to' his mind, a foreign state, when it was doing its' best to assist the Empire, in the fight for freedom and liberty. The upshot of the whole scheme had enabled P;W.D„ undertakings to proceed three times as quickly as heretofore. He mentioned the new Wellington access road, the forty-six tortuous bends, of w'hich , had been baptised in the blood of innocent victims. This job he had completed in nine months by tli« utilisation of a completely mechanised gang. 700,000 yards of rock had been shifted and as a result they defeated their own estimate, both in time and finance. Ninety-Nine Aerodromes. Following the report of WingCommander Cochran, who was loan- : ed to the N§w Zealand Government . for the purpose of' making a survey, it became necessary to construct ninety-nine aerodromes. This huge task was entrusted to the P.W.D. and since 1935 10,000,000 yards of spoil .had been moved and some of the largest hangars in the world constructed. Four hundred buildings had been erected, also providing ground services equal to anything in the world. In this manner New Zealand was able to co-operate with the Empire air training ' scheme by providing three thousand ' pilots a year for the R.A.F. The actual formation costs were ; £537,000, against an estimate, under 1 the old. system, of £2,500,000. Thus, f in a third of the time the country i now possessed ' modern aerodromes and had been saved the expense of i £2,000,000. i He would like to say that the • abuse he had received was 90 per i cent, political, some of it unfair and unjust, and some bordering on criminal slander. Without flying the ; flag of egotism, or boasting, he felt that there w T ere occasions when he : could claim a perfect right to say ( something in his defence. The mail chines he had introduced worked in . some instances 24 hours a day and had paid for themselves five times i over, with still eight years of eco- . nomic life. Military Camps. Speaking of the .erection of milij tary camps, he said no pre.-. paration had been made...,for this •' „ . ; . ... • t-r .' r.-" .•, 1 > v emergencyi as the country had -hop(Continijed foot next coldmn).

eel that the spectre of blood and Avar would pass by, but the 'Demon of Dissension' and his gang of ruffians had willed it otherwise and we were drawn into the war whether Ave liked it or not. It had fallen to his department to erect military camps and by comparison of Miner and accommodation he would say that, at the Great Boukler Dam, Colorado, U.S.A., the Americans hnrl; boasted that they built a city to accommodate five thousand in eighteen months. In Ncav Zealand, he could say that his officers had built military camps to last and !o hold seven thousand men, in seven months. It was not necessary to go outside New Zealand to set* records of this natnre and lve would have no hesitation in saying, anywhere, that this country possessed some of the finest engineers in the world.