WAITAKI HYDRO WORKS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20107, 10 December 1930, Page 13

WAITAKI HYDRO WORKS.

LETTER TO MR CLYDE CARR, M.P. STATEMENT BY HON. W. B. TAVERNER. (»P*CI*L TO TH» PJtJISa.) TIMARU, December 9. Mr Clyde Carr, M.P., has received the following letter from the Minister for Public Works (the Hon. W. B. Taverner): — "I have received your letter of November 27th, and desire to explain that between June 7th last and October 25th, the number of men employed at Waitaki hydro-electrie works power scheme was increased from 746 to 1155, in order' to take advantage of the lower river flow to expedite excavation and concreting of the Canterbury side of the dam. It has now become neeeseary to make a reduction in the number of men employed, and this not being done any more rapidly than required. Last Saturday there were still 1059 men employed. The District Engineer (Mr R. H. Paekwood) has assured me that care is being exercised in deciding what men should be allowed to go. You stated you had been informed that CO men had been engaged at Waitaki during the past three weeks, but the District Engineer states that this is not so. Twenty men were, however, engaged for transmission line erection. "With regard to the allegation that foreign foremen, particularly Germans, are being put over British workers, and are 'putting it over' them, too, it was news to me that there were any foreign foremen or overseers employed at Waitaki, and on making special enquiries I find that there are no foreigners engaged in a supervisory capacity at the works. Probably the complaint related to a foreman who, although of Scan-