FLOCK HOUSE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 37, 13 February 1932, Page 16

FLOCK HOUSE.

INTENTION OF TRUSTEES.

TRAINING NEW ZEALANDERS. CONFERENCE TO DECIDE. Correspondence recently received has led the Flock House authorities to fear that there is in some quarters a misapprehension of the reasons for the offers to be laid before the conference called for February 24, and that the trustees' offer to extend the training at Flock House to New Zealand youth is based on some advantage to be gained to the fund or to. the trustees. "If any credence was attached to such an impression it would stultify any possible good results from the conference," says the secretary, Mr. F. G. Hume, "and it is desired to remove any . such misapprehension as early as possible. For this purpose it is desired to make certain points clear prior to the conference, and a statement has been prepared and distributed to all branches of Patriotic and Returned Soldiers' Associations. The statement is as follows:—

"(1) The investment by the trustees in Flock House Station land, stock and farming operations is a sound venture, on which there is no intention of realising, and on the annual returns from which the trustees rely for their future operations in assisting disabled seamen and the dependents of those who were killed. From a purely business point of view it would be to the financial advantage of the fund to now terminate the training of boys at Flock House, and to run the station to best advantage on money-making lines solely. Eleven Years' Work.

"(2) The trustees have given eleven years' honorary service to the administration of the Seamen's Fund, and, in addition to distributing £63,000 to disabled seamen and widows, have during the last seven and a half years built up a system of farm-training for the war-orphaned dependents of British seamen, by which 763 have been thoroughly trained and looked after, the great majority of whom are in a position of economic independence, with some already established on farms of their own.

"It would be greatly to the individual and personal advantage of the trustees to declare that they have now well and faithfully completed one-half of their job, and proposed to devote their energies to establishing their former trainees on farms of their own, as they become fit and ready.

. "(3) The trustees intend to carry out the foregoing, but from a national and civic standpoint cannot overlook the facts that the great necessity of the day is to train the youth of New Zealand in land culture and development, that they hold a valuable property which, from its natural.conditions and from the additions apd equipment made to it, is most suitable for this special purpose, and that they are also in command of a training and after-care organisation which has proved itself.

"It. is solely .for the above reasons that the trustees have offered to give their free services, and the use of the station land, stock, buildings and equipment, to extend the system to New Zealand youth.

Cost of Maintenance. "(4) Some discussion has taken place on the cost of maintenance of New Zealand youth at Flock House. The trustees have not specified any figure. They have given to the executive committee of one interested body the audited costs per head of the overseas boys, including outfitting, selection, transit to New Zealand and Flock House, maintenance at Flock House, medical and dental treatment, pocketmoney, theoretical instruction and tuition, games, travelling, finding employment, after-care, etc.

"How far the conditions under which the overseas boys have been handled shall apply to the New Zealand boys, and the saving in cost which may be made by. a modification of the. system, is one for the consideration and deliberation of the conference. Any such saving in cost would not accrue to this fund, but to those who were responsible for the maintenance of the New Zealand boys."