PUBLIC WORKS CAMPS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22510, 19 September 1938, Page 10

PUBLIC WORKS CAMPS

MINISTER’S REPLY TO LETTER

SUITABILITY OF MEN FOR

MANUAL JOBS

A strong denial that officials of the Employment Branch of the Department of Labour have been instructed - to ' send every man who is at all fitinto a public works camp has been made by the Minister in charge of the de-. partir.ent, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, .in :a letter to “The Press.” Mr Arm- ; strong replied particularly to statements made by a- cprresppndent signing himself “Choose,’*, and strongly - • condemned a suggestion made by the writer that men were sent forward to manual jobs regardless of their suit-. ability for them. .... - “Your correspondent is not corrert;;. • in'stating that-instructions have isisued to my department’to send- every .- man who, was: at all fit into .one. of - the - public ’ \yorks .c.aipps,’’ Mihisfcf.’' ! 'tT have been at soiriejjaims, to ensure that the greatest discrimina- n . tion be iised in the matter of sending. unemployed men to .the jobs-which my .*.j department has . found -in the last few. months.. Camp jobs—and these have - been, established : only where it was- - , impossible to place all men near thdir ; - homes—have been created for .single men. Married men have been permit-. f>: ted to go to such work where they . so desired, but cases of this nature are the exception, as work in their - own locality has been found for practically every fit married man on the. unemployment'register. .i “I strongly refute the assertion made by your correspondent that men are sent forward .to manual jobs regardless of their suitability for them. For J the work that calls for real physical effort, I have arranged that the engineers of employing departments ex-... amine . the men before , engagement, so as to ensure, in both the'interests of the men and the departments, that only fit. suitable workers are engaged. For men ~10. whom manual labour presents an- unreasonable task, jobs have ‘‘ been found ranging fro» the eradication of noxious weeds (the of physical toil), light afforestation work, and the care of defence arms, to the provision of clerical work wherever this can be arranged. - “Task Largely Accomplished”

,'Tn the recent intensive efforts to provide full-time work, every endeavour has been made to ensure thatemployment is-provided which is suitable, in place, and character, to the class of unemployed labour available. The task is hot an easy one, hut I. can fairly claim on actual results that it hat: very , largely been accomplished. In any case, surely, if funds are available, it is better to provide Jobs which mean, a higher standard of living than can be reached on sustenance relief (even at the generous relief rates introduced by. this Government), although it maymean that some men may have to turn; their unaccustomed hands for a time to , manual work. The Government is not superhuman; it cannot place every unemployed man into the niche' for which he is best fitted, just by the, wave of a wand. But pending his placement in trade and industry, it can give, and has given work at award, rates for thousands who previously: drew sustenance relief for . longer, periods than many of them will car* to remember. “Until industrial expansion- has been brought to the point where it is possible to absorb all men in industrially productive occupation, my objective is to retain —and maintain—the ability and faculty of every unemployed man who will make an effort to help himself by utilising his energy in preference to letting it evaporate. That objective will the more readily be reached, and my task made that much lighter, if the workers whom I have tried .to assist return only a spirit, of helpful co-operation.”