In this way House Refuse collection, taken over some years ago from the Health Department, has been combined with House Refuse disposal, Street cleansing, Transport and Ordure. collection, into one large branch, enabling the same work to be done with a smaller staff and yet with more efficient control.
The Highways Branch has for long been under-staffed. The work of the District Engineers has increased so much in volume and variety during the past ten years with the development of the town and growth of traffic thay they have never had time to give sufficient attention to the economics of their work, or to the adequate supervision of their labour. The Highways labour is so widely distributed over the town, is so constantly moving from place to place, and concerned with so many different kinds of work that proper supervision presents special difficulties. To find the necessary additional staff was also not easy. Trained highways engineers are not to be found locally, their engagement from abroad is expensive, and the local peculiarities of subsoil and traffic so affect road construction that training and experience abroad are of uncertain value, Accordingly the extra staff had to be sought m within, and was found by combining the Sewerage and Highways Branches. Se-we rage may not appear to have much in common with Highways work, but, like all other utilities, it uses the roads, The pooling of the two staffs. though they had already been reduced, supplied sufficient extra staff to permit a complete reorganization of the combined work of these branches. The system of control by districts which had always seemed so convenient was entirely discarded.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.