NO SEA CAREERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 21, 25 January 1934, Page 9

NO SEA CAREERS.

NEW ZEALAND BOYS. "DISGRACE TO COUNTRY." SOME OF THE OBSTACLES. That it was a disgrace to a maritime country that boys who wish to follow the calling of the sea should be faced with so many obstacles, was the opinion expressed at yesterday's meeting of the Auckland Boys' Employment Committee. Mr. N. G. Gribble, the secretary, said that he received more than 100 applications a year from boys who wished to go to sea.

The chairman of the New Zealand Company of Master Mariners, Captain S. Holm, wrote explaining the difficulties. He said the company for a long time had been endeavouring to open up an avenue for New Zealand boys to take up the sea as a profession. They were offered a four-masted sailing ship, the Rewa, as a .gift, and tried to presuade the Government to run her as a training ship. They were also offered an old passenger steamer by the Union Steam Ship Company, and they offered it to the Government as a harbour training ship. The suggestion was that boys after serving six to 12 months on the harbour training ship, would be eligible for employment as ordinary seamen on steamers. The Government could not find its way clear to finance any of these scheme. Government Takes No Action.

"Later," continued Captain Holm, "we placed four proposals before the Prime Minister, which were referred to the Parliamentary committee, set up to consider boy employment, and my executive discussed the matter with the committee several times, but nothing was done. The position to-day is that it is practically impossible for a New Zealand boy to go to sea. Most of the New Zealand steamers carry ordinary seamen, but all these have to be members of the Seamen' 6 Union, and for that reason we cannot send a first voyager as an ordinary seaman. "There are . hundreds of applications every year from all the centres of New Zealand, and the position is certainly not very hopeful at present." Proposals to Government. The company had subsequently placed the following proposals before the Government:—• (1) That the Government consider carrying boys in the Government steamers Matai and Maui Poniare. (2) That the overseas shipping companies who trade exclusively with the Dominion be appoached to carry a percentage of New Zealand boys in their ships. (3) That Che question of boys being carried on New Zealand ships be looked into by calling a conference of interested parties. (4) That the question of applying the Flock House funds toward the placing of boys at sea be investigated.

So far as Captain Holm was aware, no steps had been taken to carry out any of these suggestions. Several members of the Boys' Employment Committee endorsed the criticism of the Government's inaction. "It is an impossible state of affairs that the sea should be a close corporation to New Zealand boys," said Mr. A. G. Lunn, "They sliould be encouraged in the spirit of the sea, and it is high tinie that the Government made provision for some method of apprenticeship." The meeting passed a motion authorising Mr. Gribble to investigate the matter fully and report to a further meeting.