§ 23. Sir NICHOLAS GRATTAN-DOYLEasked the Minister of Transport what is the estimated number of men for whom work would be found on road construction per £1,000,000 of expenditure?
§ Colonel ASHLEYAn estimate of this sort is largely governed by various local conditions and by the character of the work itself. If the works were predominantly undertaken in urban areas on the most economical terms, a figure of 1590 2,000 men employed direct upon the work for a year for each £1,000,000 expended would probably be a reasonable estimate. If the works consisted largely of selected schemes in rural areas which admitted of a high proportion of manual labour, the figure of men employed for one year direct on the works might be increased to as much as 2,500. No sufficient data exist to enable a useful estimate to be framed as regards the volume of employment provided away from the actual site of the works, but it is commonly assumed that every man employed on the actual works would entail another man indirectly employed in producing and transporting materials and in other ways, and this assumption may not be unreasonable.