GOVERNMENT LABOUR REDUCTIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 285, 3 December 1901, Page 2

GOVERNMENT LABOUR REDUCTIONS.

MEN DISMISSED AT TONGAPORUTU. Wobd was received from Tongsporutu yesterday that eleven men were dismissed from work on the road at that place on Saturday. The men employed were mostly settlers, and it had been understood that they were to be k*pt on the works at the road and bridge, and as the completion of these is very necessary it is hopid tbe men will be put on again at once.

REDUCTIONS ON THE EAST ROAD. A Frets wire received last night states that 70 men h ivj been dismissed from the Ohura-road works. Thirty men who are retained are resident settlers. , DEPUTATION TO THE MINISTER. PBH PRESS ASSOCIATION. Wellington, December 2. i Messrs Hogg and Hall, M's.H.R., waited on the Minister for Lands today in reference to a gang of men sent from the South to their districts for co-operative works. They pointed out that the men already engaged were sufficient for the wortfs on hand, and urged that the new men be removed and employed in clearing bush lands. The Minister undertook to consider the matter.

THE POSITION ON THE TRUNK LINE. Auckland. December 2.

The position with regard to the discharge of men from the works at the northern end of the North Island Trunk railway becomes daily more extraordinary. Several men who were employed on the line state that at least 300 men, out of a total of about 500 or 6CO employed, were last week dismissed without any explanation. The work is for the most part carried on by co-opera-tive contracts', the parties baing divided into six men. Ths statement made that the men dispensed with had completed their contracts is denied by the men themselves.

In nearly every iostsnea the contracts were far from completed when the men were,, discharged. All single men employed hare been dispensed with, and only married men remain. Tbe men on see no reason, unless a financial one, why the numbor employed should be reduced.

the fact seems to be that nearly all the single men have bren discharged, and in place of some 500 or 600 employed a fortnight back, and some 700 a few months ago, now barely 200 or 300 are engaged on the works, which stretch from Ongarue to beyond the Wanganui river.