FARM GAMP FOR BOYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 103, 4 May 1931, Page 8

FARM GAMP FOR BOYS.

PROPOSAL NOT APPROVED. STATEMENT BY MINISTER. FAILURE OF OTHER. SETTLEMENT SCHEMES. A suggestion that a camp should be established at the abandoned military camp at Hopu Hopu for the purpose of training New Zealand youths for farm work has been rejected by the Government as impracticable.

Replying to the Auckland Land Settlement League, which urged the Government to use the camp as a training and clearing centre for unemployed boys, the Minister o.f Lands, the Hon. A. J. Murdoch, states that, after giving the matter careful consideration, lie cannot see his way to approve of the scheme.

"In the first place," he said, "£lie idea of placing a number of bays in a camp > giving tiieni only one or two bjpntfis' training, and aiterwards endeavouring to have them taken on by farmers for farm work, would not be satisfactory. The short period of training proposed would be entirely ineffective and of no real practical value to farmers. Apart-from this, however, my inquiries show that the scheme established by the Unemployment Board for placing labour on farms has not resulted in any appreciable amount of labour being taktn on by farmers, and it can, I think} be expected that' under the present economic conditions the same result would follow if an. attempt were made to put into practice the scheme you suggest. Even in. more favourable economic conditions three or four years ago, when an attempt was made through the Immigration Department to get .New Zealand boys to go on the land by arrangement with . individual farmers* this proved unsuccessful. In the- circumstances, therefore, I do not see how the Government can take action, more especially as the proposed scheme would involve very considerable expenditure. Under the present condition of State finances, such expenditure would not be warrantable when there is good reason for believing that the scheme, if put into practice, .would not prove successful in attaining the end wiich your executive desires."

Commenting on the Minister's reply, the chairman of the Land Settlement League, Mr. W. J. Holds worth, said he frequently received letters from farmers asking for boys with a little experience in farming. The idea of, the camp was to teach boys the elementary principles of farming, such as milking, the handling of machines, fencing, etc. It would then be a clearing house ,to which farmers could write and secure selected boys with some knowledge of the work they were to undertake- He regretted that while the Government could train boys to fight it found the problem of training boys to work too big to face.