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Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21708, 15 February 1936, Page 14

Just after the last lot of pheasants was re- * leased by the Wellington Acclimatisation Society, wrote Mr N. H. Nelson to the society’s last meeting, he had found in Moore’s Valley a cock pheasant so sick that it could not fly, and found it to be full of lice. He took it to his cottage and washed it, afterwards treating it as is customary with show fowls, and in a days it recovered sufficiently to be released. Three weeks ago he* came across another in a worse condition, but after treatment it made a wonderful recovery. In his opinion these birds ware not clean when liberated, and when they had to seek their own food they sank in condition, and might have died. It was resolved to have this matter investigated. Whereas there was the possibility of a shortage of skilled workmen arising in the near future, there was little possibility of increasing the number of apprentices being taken into the trade until some drastic alteration of the present apprenticeship laws was made, said the anhugl teport of the New Zealand Federation of Master Plumbers. Any government must be concerned with the fact that the number of apprentices to the industry in New Zealand today was less than one-third of what it was four years* ago. Finally, workers must recognise that the principal avenues of employment for their sons were in skilled trades, and that the reason for the small number of apprenticeship contracts entered into needed thorough investigatidn with a View to taking out of the existing laws those, ednditiohs which were responsible for the refusal of employers to apprentice labour. ‘ ‘ "