FLOCK HOUSE TRAINING

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 106, 31 October 1936, Page 13

FLOCK HOUSE TRAINING

SYSTEM- DEFENDED

98 PER CENT. OF SUCCESSES

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

DUNEDIN, October 30,

: ; Strong exception to the Criticism of li Flock House training by Mr. W. Lyons iat.a meeting of the Auckland Returned i Soldiers' Association was taken by Mr. iO. L. Ferens, secretary of the Flock House provincial committee for Otago and Southland and representative of ! Southland on the committee, in a conversation with a.reporter this after-

noon. ■ i His experience, he said, was totally the reverse of that which was stated ■ to- exist in Auckland. To date the committee had sent forward approximately 70: trainees, and, with one or two except ; tions who were found after training to ;be not suitable, the great majority hadimade good. Some were earning as much as 35s a week, and one of the first trainees who had been placed in the .North Island had done remarkably -, welll

"Mr. Lyons cannot have any knowledge of the work of ( the . provincial committees," said Mr. Ferens,. "or of the trouble which is taken to place boys with selected farmers. 'Sometimes boys who are misfits have .been transferred: to a" different type of farm, where they have made good. The provincial committees are composed of men of mature and sound experience. The remark about the boys being: cheap labour for wealthy (squatters does not merit serious attention."

At Flock House, he continued, trainees received careful training- morally, physically, and spiritually, and everything was done to make them firstclass; citizens. He would say that 98 per cent, of the trainees who had gone through Floek1 House had done well. In the Gone and Heriot. districts 24 boys had been, placed, and in the next few: months six ,more would oe sent out. The-committee had found that the boys had been very generously treated, and many had received substantial additions to their wages from rabbiting. In conclusion, he expressed; on behalf of 'the local provincial .committee, appreciation, of the Government's decision to. purchase Flock House.