WORK AT MANGAHAO.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2133, 27 May 1920, Page 3

WORK AT MANGAHAO.

ALA U KED IMP ROVE MEN T SHOWN. (Pa 1 merston Times.) The Department has experienced considerable difficulty in • procuring and retaining labour in connection with the Mangahao hydro-electrie works, owing to luck of proper accommodation and insufficient wages. A dawmill is now turning out 2,000 feet of timber a day, with the prospect of uinnately reaching 5,000 feet, and numerous huts arc being eroded. Altogether there arc 130 men employed. Most of the roadwork is done by co-operative contract, the men receiving an average of 18s (id per day, and finding certain tools and implements. Others receive about. 13s Gd a day. Little work will he carried out during the winter, but the spring should find everything in train for more expeditions construction during the coming season. There has been considerable delay in procuring' the necessary machinery from England, but the purchase id' a second-hand air compressor to drive the drills in one tunnel has been completed, and it fas arrived on the site for boring (he far end of ilie Mangahao tunnel. The Avapeiti tunnel will be bored by

transmission power from a temporary plant. Access to (he Mangahao end of the first tunnel will he by cable tramway from. I lie roadwav overhead. This will he ready in a month, and tunnel boring operations should commence in about eight weeks. Tiie work of damming the A rapid! I holding pond is already in progress. Much of the. spade work has been completed, and. as one official remarked. “another three years will see the power switched on." However, those men who have

( on-dantly been urging the Department forward will not relax their v : " : lance. The president of Ihe 'a:m) In a Times reg:,;-/er I hai since ids ho t visit io the works a marked improvement had bee;,! shown, both in ihc ma,iter of progress and accommodation.