OFFICE RAIDED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 March 1940, Page 6

OFFICE RAIDED

ON RELIEF WORKS JOB

ALL RECORDS STOLEN.

FOLLOWING ON OTTIER THEFTS

AND DAMAGE.

(Bj’ Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH. This Day.

Allegations were made by Mr A. R. Blank today that after the relief works at the Wai’tikere Golf Links had been closed down by the Minister of Public Works (Mr Semple) on Tuesday, the foreman's office was raided and all the books, records and files relating to the operation of the job were stolen. The raid took place after dark and the office was forcibly broken open. Other allegations made by Mr Blank related to the destruction of tools and equipment, wilful damage to motor trucks and thefts of petrol. The loss to the club through the activities of the men responsible ran into several hundreds of pounds. Interviewed today. Mr Blank said that on four different occasions the police had been called in to investigate thefts of petrol. On one occasion a 40gallon drum of petrol was stolen and altogether some hundreds of gallons had been unlawfully removed from a shed. On each occasion on which a theft was reported, it was found that the doors of the shed had been forced open and the job appeared to have been clone by men who knew the nun of the ropes and the contents of the shed. Wilful damage had been done to trucks owned by the club. Three of these had been purchased and two were now permanently out of commission because of the damage that had been done to them. Just recently a crank handle was thrown into the radiator of the remaining truck, doing £l3 worth of damage. A man, when spoken to about this incident, replied: "It was a pity it did not cost £26.”

Tn six months. £BO had been spent in repairing damage. Mr Blank added that there had been constant trouble with the men and when a man was threatened with dismissal for unsatisfactory work, go-slow methods were adopted by his mates. Recently eight men were warned for not pulling their weight and this resulted in a stopwork meeting which lasted from 8 a.m. to 10.30 a.m.