PUBLIC WORKS POLICY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3978, 8 July 1913, Page 5

PUBLIC WORKS POLICY.

NEW CONTRACT SYSTEM. MINISTERIAL STATEMENT. TRY TELEGRAPH—PARLIAMENTARY CORRESPONDENT! WELLINGTON, July 7. In a statement made this evening by Hon. W. Fraser, there was some light upon the nature of the reform which is now being effected m the methods of carrying out public works. Mr. Fraser made it clear that the new system of small contracts which, he is introducing will embody all the good features of the co-operative system, while avoiding its faults. The new system is one under which small groups of men will be afforded facilities for taking up contracts which they will carry "out in co-operative co-partner-ship. There is no intention, the Minister stated, of introducing a system under which one man would reap a profit at the .expense of the .other members of the contracting group. Such a proposal had never been entertained, and one. important feature of the new system would be that every facility would be given to competent workmen to group together. Faulty' administration of the co-operative system in past years had given rise to such abuses as good workmen being exploited by incompetent or indifferent workmen. There would be no more of this condition, and the Munster has arranged for the thorough inspection of public works from end to end of the Dominion and for the piesentation of reports upon their progress at regular intervals. An argument that some country mernber6 have advanced against the administration of the co-operative system in past years is that men have been called upon to carry out work without knowing what schedule rate they were to be paid for doing it. When this was mentioned to the Minister he said he found such allegations loudly creditable, but that in any case under his administration men engaged in public works’would always know beforehand the piecework rate which they were to receive. The only reasonable alternative to this, the Minister added, would be day labor. The co-operative system, if carried out properly, Mr. Fraser remarked, is only a small contract system. In the past the trouble has been that owing to bad grouping good men have received less than they earned, while incompetent men have received more. It is true that competent workmen have had chances of leaving a particular gang where this inequality existed for another, but very often they were out of the frying pan into the' fire, and they perhaps got into a worse gang. Under the small contract system the men will be able to ’arrange themselves into gangs of six or seven or eight men, as the case may be, who, will work as partners. While men have not the means to get plant, tools, and appliances or horses, the Department will supply them, on the understanding that the co-partners will recoup it from their earnings. Regarding the demand for employment, the Minister stated that lns_ Department had to the present without difficulty placed all the competent workmen -who had applied to it for work.