D—3

Telephone-exchanges and extensions have not been able to go ahead at their normal pace during the war, and the overtaking of arrears in this direction must be regarded as "urgent. " Civil engineering works associated with land development have featured prominently in the history of the Dominion, and may be expected to feature still more prominently as the policy of soil conservation, flood-protection, irrigation, drainage, and afforestation is put into effect. Such works have the merit of increasing the productive capacity of the primary industries, on which the most substantial proportion of the Dominion's population depends, directly or indirectly, for its livelihood. In view of the need to provide land for thousands of ex-servicemen wishing to take up farming to contribute to the maximum in meeting world food requirements, and to increase the productive-capacity of the whole country in what, after all, is the most logical way, this whole class of works must be regarded as of high priority. It. is, fortunately, not competitive with works in the building field. The growth of cities and towns cannot take place without considerable engineering work being undertaken. Water-supply extensions, sewerage, st-orm-water drainage, street and amenity works, gas and electric supply works must alike proceed in step with or ahead of the growth of population if living standards are to be maintained or improved. Most of this work has been suspended during the war, but urban populations have expanded notwithstanding. In order to meet the demand in this connection a very heavy expenditure will be required on works, some of which must be classed as urgent. When the war broke out New Zealand was engaged on the construction of many scenic highways and tourist attractions, and the tourist traffic was responsible for building up substantially our overseas exchange. These works were all closed down during the war, and it does not seem possible to accord them a priority until more urgent works have had consideration. 8. ASSESSMENT AND ANALYSIS OF POTENTIAL DEMAND With so great a volume of work urgently requiring to be done it was, of course, obvious that the whole problem would have to be handled in a systematic manner if the best interests of the Dominion were to be served. With a demand far in excess of the country's capacity to build, some determination of relative urgency was necessary. Assessment of Building Needs By using the machinery of the Organization for National Development and the National Employment Service,, together with separate action originating from the Ministry of Works, information was gathered from Government Departments and local authorities in regard to buildings and works which they contemplated carrying out in the post-war period. Inquiries were at the same time extended to private architects and to manufacturers, and, although the response from these private sources was necessarily less definite than from Departments and local authorities, a considerable amount of information was assembled. As a first step an attack was made on the building problem with a view to determining a policy for building control during the year 1946-47.

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