The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, JUNE 10. 1932. UNEMPLOYED BOYS

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 136, 10 June 1932, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

FRIDAY, JUNE 10. 1932. UNEMPLOYED BOYS

HOSPITAL ECONOMIES

For the cause that, tanks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, A >>.<l the good that tee can do.

What are we going to do with our boys? At, present there are said to be 20,000 boys unemployed, and so far no really constructive proposals have been put forward for dealing with the problem. The seriousness of the position was emphasised by the large deputation which waited on the Government yesterday to urge that something should be done, but the response was most disappointing. The financial difficulty was considered too great to allow of the payment of subsidies as suggested by the deputation. The Government really confessed that it had neither money nor ideas, and, indeed, appealed to the public for the latter. Yet unless the matter is taken in hand New Zealand will rapidly drift into the position obtaining in England, where thousands oC boys have grown up without ever having done a day's work.

Mr. Coatcs laid stress on the responsibility of the Government towards the children of parents who were themselves forced to seek relief. This is not denied, but it is idle to say that there responsibility ends. These boys as they grow to manhood will become either an asset or a liability to the State. If they are given opportunity to find scope for their talents and occupy themselves in productive work, they will add to the wealth of the nation. If they grow up in idleness, they may get into mischief or even fall into crime. In any case, their potential contribution to the common weal is being lost. Other countries faced with the same problem have made definite plans for dealing with it. In some cases the care of boys leaving school has been made a definite charge on municipalities. In some South German towns occupational classes have been organised; some French towns require tradesmen to take youths into their employ; many American cities provide training in skilled trades; and in Hungary a movement has been started to provide bright boys of undoubted talent with university training. There is need for some system of organisation by means of which the capacities of different boys for different kinds of work may be made known to employers, and possible openings to boys. But it seems imperative that some grant should be made for assisting the placing or educating of boys, and money so spent should prove a sound investment.

FUTURE OF THE DOMAIN

The agitation against the proposed new road in the Domain has not only prevented or postponed the construction of any such road, but has opened up the whole question of the Domain's future. It may be that in its turn the Domain will be opened up so much that its characteristics will be destroyed, and that is the danger that now has to be guarded against. The City Council is undertaking a comprehensive plan for the treatment of the Domain and its surroundings, "which would embody the most up-to-date principles of park design," and will invite the Institute of Horticulture, the Town Planning Institute and the Institute of Architects to assist. The fuller inquiry is a wise step, and it. is gratifying to find the Council giving this further recognition to outside bodies interested in city improvements. If there had been more consultation of architects and horticulturists in the past fewer mistakes would have been made, and the city would have been spared some of its present ugliness. But the intention of embodying in the new plan "the most up-to-date principles of park design" will make lovers of the Domain nervous. It suggests the ! possibility of the Domain being turned into another Albert Park. Now, Albert Park is a delightful spot, but its beauty and its interest are not the beauty and interest of the Domain, and it is much easier to create the one set of conditions than the other. The Domain can be improved, but its essential features of quiet beauty—paths through woods, grassy glades and slopes, and trees growing unofficially, so to speak, should be carefully preserved. It should not be cluttered up with artificiality and made noisy with through traffic. The Domain has enough natural beauty to make it not only unnecessary, but. offensive to plaster the area with cosmetics.

"Conference," like "deputation," might be defined as a word that signifies many but does not necessarily signify much. Despite objections raised, on the ground of expense, to a national conference of the usual size being held to consider hospital economies, it will bo observed that about a hundred delegates from hospital boards have gathered in Wellington. If, however, the conference really gets down to the problem of economy, and the Government acts upon : its recommendations, many times more than the cost of the gathering, which can hardly be less than £1000, will be saved, and it is encouraging to read that on the opening day the conference agreed that the number of hospital districts should be reduced and appointed a committee to consider ways and means. Such a reduction is part of the necessary work of reform. There are forty-five hospital boards in the same number of districts, whose populations and hospitals vary greatly in size, and the Wellington proposal is to reduce this number to eighteen. But this kind of reorganisation is only half the battle. There must be reorganisation within the hospitals themselves, so as to put management on a business-like footing. It is significant that the Minister told the Conference that some hospitals economised, but sonic did not. The Conference should set up a small committee consisting of a doctor with hospital experience, an accountant, and someone with a thorough knowledge of the running of institutions, to visit the various hospitals, study their conditions, and frame a system to he followed generI ally in the Dominion.