CAREERS ON THE LAND

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 32, 1 November 1929, Page 12

CAREERS ON THE LAND

THE NEW ZEALAND BOY UNDUE LOVE OF SPORT The New Zealand boy’s love of pleasure and his disinclination to take up a career on the land were criticised by the Hon. E. Newman, M.L.C., when addressing the contributors to the NewZealand Sheepowners’ Acknowledgment of Debt to British Seamen Fund, at their annual meeting yesterday. While making it clear that he. had nothing against sport and appreciated it as much as anyone, Mr. Newman considered that among New Zealand boys there was an undue love of sport. He knew as well as anyone that sport was necessary for young people, but it could be carried too far. Boys from Home seemed better able to settle down to conditions in the Dominion. Many of the English boys had never been on a racecourse in their lives, and they, were not taken up with racing as Nev? Zealand boys seemed to be. He considered the New Zealand boys and girls ivere the best in the world, but he could not help noticing that the boys and girls sent out from Home were more willing to go into the backblocks. They were willing to take back-country work, and in that way differed from the colonial boy. A Deplorable Fact. Mr. Newman went on to say that certain Labour unions had seen fit to pass resolutions asking the Government to discourage English boys coming to New Zealand, Flock House boys being included. “There is,” said Mr. Newman, “a marked disinclination on the part of the New Zealand boy io take up country life. In a country where the whole of the wealth comes from the land this is rather a deplorable fact. Equally unfortunate is the position as regards the girls. Unless the girls are prepared to go into the country the boys will not go. The girls, I am informed, are more disinclined to go on the land than the boys, and wont marry anyone going into the country. Lack of Trained Farm Workers. “One of the problems to-day,” he said, “is the difficulty of getting trained farm workers. It seems almost impossible to get a man not requiring constant supervision. Many parts of the North Island are left undeveloped owing to the scarcity of farm labour. There are indications of the shortage of farm labour everywhere. Very few farmers in New Zealand have the inclination, many not the temperament, to teach boys farming, and especially is this so with farmers with valuable stock, for they do not care to let inexperienced boys handle them. We are doing an important work in training boys for the land, and I think the unions that passed the resolutions I referred to did not act wisely.” Mr. Newman concluded by remarKip# that any comparison between English and New Zealand boys was not by any means desirable.