CHILD LABOUR IN NEW ZEALAND

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 273, 12 August 1920, Page 6

CHILD LABOUR IN NEW ZEALAND

BEFORE AND AFTER SCHOOL.

At tho meeting of the AVellinglon Women Teachers' Association, held in the Education Board Buildings 011 Monday night, Dr. Ada I'aterson read an interesting paper upon Child Labour. Dr. Paterson dealt first of all with child labour and its conditions as they exjst in Great Britain, and then described it as it. existed in New Zealand. As tho | problem existed in New Zealand, sho told her hearers, it mainly concerned children employed out of school hours. What had to be decided was whether it existed to a degree prejudicial to tho welfare of tho children concerned, and, if so, what were the practical remedies. Nature demanded tlrnt the growing child should have adequate food and clothing, fresh air-spaco, and exercise for the developing body, and at night n sufficient amount of gcod, quiet sleep. The developing mind also required suitable nourishment. Habitual extra, work could not but be. injurious to th* growing organism. This was especially so in employment in tho early hours of the morning, or late nt night, which interrupted proper hours for food and sleep, and it was obvious tlint a child whoso superfluous energy was totally exhausted in work outside school hours could not show the same mental alertness. Constant exposure to bad weather was injurious to children, and strcot crying occasionally resulted in permanently strained vocal organs. The effect of extra work was shown in the great majority of children in lack of physical well-being; thoy became anaemic, showed signs of nerve strain in undue emotionalism, instability, and lack of power of concentration. Children, when early subjected to overstrain, mental or physical, did not weather the storms of middle age successfully, even though they might not show its evil effects in youth. Boys who did work such as milking, often had heavier labour and longer hours than tho city wage-earner. The physical strain was greater. Eighty per cont. of boys in special schools and training homes' began as newsboys. Physically tho boys tended to deteriorate.

There were many varieties of labour that boys wero engaged in in tho city, chief of which wero as newsboys, milkboys, parcel-boys, post and telegraph Wye, inasseiiger \x>ys, sellers of sweets in theatres, etc. Last year the Newtown School gave a return of 34 wage-earners among its children, Mount Cook Boys' School 60 boys as wage-earners, and six other schools in Wellington that sent returns for this year gave n total of 12(1 wage-earners. On investigation, the work was found to vary in nmount from a harmless half-hour or so a day to duties occupying three, and in some cases even Jive, hours daily. Another bad feature of much of this casual work was that it often led the child to have a wrong sense of the value of mental work. Money was easily earned, he did .nothing creative, and his energies and ambitions became stunted. He tende<l to heeonie a casual mid unskilled worker instead of a skilled mechanic or craftsman. During those times when his hands should be the means of materialising tho conceptions of his expanding brain, ho was employed in tasks which fatigued, but did not stimulate, his mind or tho cunning of his hand. However, continued Dr/Paterson, before forbidding tho wageearning child, it had to bo seen that he waa not put in a woreo position than before in being deprived of the extra food and ccmfort which his wages bring. Well-meaning parents should not .be forced by poverty into allowing their children to do injurious work. Tho «:vcro responsibility in being selfsupporting had to bo encouraged, but discrimination had to be used between such eases and those in which the child was suffering injury, The homo surroundings of tho children had to be liuido better. Their hours of leisure must have possibilities of enjoyment and profit. The energy realised by tho cessation of work outside had to 1» directed into proper channels. Tho street, was at. present tho , only playground ol these children. Their homes were not fit for a child's leisure j evenings. I