BAGWORT MENACE

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 125, 23 November 1932, Page 8

BAGWORT MENACE

CAMPAIGN BY COUNTIES

■ A start is to be made this week by two counties south of Auckland with the work of fighting the ragwort menace, utilising; labour provided by the Unemployment Board. Men have been recruited in Auckland by the Auckland staft of the Unemployment Board for the Otorohanga County Council, which is to employ fifty men on this work, states the rrNew Zealands^jSerald." _ The first batch of twenty left for Otorohanga yesterday, twenty more were_ dispatched to-day, and the remaining ten are to go south on Thursday. Arrangements are being made by the county council to house the. men. Some of them will be billeted with farmers and the others will be accommodated in small camps. The fares of the workers are to be paid by the county council, which is also providing equipment and materials, while the Unemployment Board will pay the wages. It is left to the county councils to make arrangements with the farmers benefiting from the work to repay the outlay incurred.

The Waitomo Count}- Council has several camps manned' -with registered unemployed. It is intended to transfer a number of these men to the work of ragwort eradication this week on terms similar to those arranged between the Otorohanga council and the board. It was stated on Monday by an officer of the Unemployment Board that in any county where there were Public Works camps manned by single men paid by the board the services of the men could be utilised by the county council when required. In addition, the councils could use local labour for this work, as well as men engaged on "over the- fence" schemes, and the board would continuei to pajr-the wages.