PUBLIC WORKS AND WAR DEMANDS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 May 1940, Page 4

PUBLIC WORKS AND WAR DEMANDS.

to war conditions is nowhere more obviously needed than where development works of a long-range

character are concerned and it is gratifying to find the necessity of subordinating undertakings of this kind to greater needs admitted now very frankly by the Minister of Public Works (Mr Semple). Discussing public works at Christchurch on Thursday, Mr Semple said as he is reported, that

it was a moral certainty that there had to be a reshuffling of the cards and changes to speed up production and to concentrate human labour on production. “There is no question any more,” he added, “now that the war is on, of making jobs in the backyard for anybody.”

As a broad statement of policy, this sums up the position admirably. Speaking of particular works, Mr Semple said that it was not proposed to stop the South Island Main Trunk Railway, on which construction was up to a schedule under which the work was to be finished in 1941, though it might be necessary to slow up on it. As to the Haast Pass Road, on which there was another three years’ work, they were working already on short staff and he had told the men employed that continuance of the work depended on circumstances. It is, of course, obvious that public works must now give way to greater needs. Any problem involved will lend itself to easy and speedy .solution if the policy is adopted of placing demands on national resources in tlieir order of importance. The conclusion which must be reached in this country no doubt is the same as that, which has already been reached in Canada, where it has been decided, according to one of yesterday’s cablegrams, that public works will have to take a holiday and that every available dollar must be spent in furtherance of war effort.