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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 4 (August 1, 1929)

Workshops Capacity

Workshops Capacity.

In declaring the hall open, the Minister of Labour complimented the Department on the provision of such a fine social hall and expressed the hope that the present gathering would be the forerunner of many of its kind.

“There are few people in New Zealand who realise the quality of work performed by the skilled artisans of the Dominion, particularly in the Railway Workshops, the Minister said. “I have had no experience as a mechanic, but I have driven locomotives over many miles in New Zealand, and the man who handles the train can claim to know something about the quality of the work in it. As the result of many years’ experience with locomotives, I say that there has never been a locomotive put on the railways in New Zealand equal to those built in our own workshops by our own men.”

As further evidence of the skill of the local men, the Minister recalled that during the war the workshops had produced a really serviceable machine-gun, notwithstanding the absence of the special machinery required for such work.

Proceeding, Mr. Veitch said that one of the greatest, if not the greatest, things in life was true friendship; and the hall would provide a common meeting ground for the creation and cementing of the best friendships between the men and between their womenfolk. In his judgment that feature of the institution was the most important, for, without friendship and social intercourse, there was very little in life that was worth while. Gatherings of the future, he hoped, would consolidate the goodwill now being established.

Mrs. T. M. Wilford offered an apology for the absence of the Hon. T. M. Wilford, who was unable to attend, as he had just recovered from an attack of influenza. Mrs. Wilford wished the railwaymen and their wives every happiness in their social gatherings.