REAL HARDSHIPS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 196, 16 May 1930, Page 13

REAL HARDSHIPS

APPRENTICES AND DRILL EVENING SCHOLARS Protesting against the hardship which would be caused by a regulation of the Defence Department which comes into forces on June 1, Dr. L. Hansen (Christchurch) introduced a special notice of motion at the annual conference of the New Zealand Technical .School Teachers’ Association yesterday. The motion read as follows: “That the attention of. the Minister of Education and the Minister of Defence be drawn to the hardship that will be inflicted on indentured apprentices attending evening classes by the decision to compel them after Juno 1, 1930, to attend thirty evening drills in the evening school vacations as well as six half-day parades unless they attend regular weekly drills.” “We are. already asking a good deal of our young workers in New Zealand,” said Dr. Hansen, “without embarrassing them any further in this way. Many of them work perhaps eight hours a day and do three evenings at school as well. Those who are making such an effort should get better treatment from their country. We are not suggesting that there should be any radical changes in the Act, but only that the Defence Department should go well out of its way to help our apprentices. I must say that in Christchurch the Defence Office does all it can for us, but still it is bound to its orders and must carry them through.” In seconding the motion, a delegate said that he thought they would all agree that Dr. Hansen bad been very temperate indeed. “I don’t think wc should let a matter like this go by without adding our protest to that which has been made by Dr. Hansen himself,” he added. Another delegate said that he did not think that Dr. Hansen had said all that he might have. “Those pupils may certainly be attending classes three evenings in the week.” lie remarked, “but they have to work three more evenings preparing for such classes. This change of front by the Defence Department is really duo to representations' that hnvc been made by the Master Builders’ Association and others.” ■ Mr. 11. A. Jones urged that when representations were made to the authorities they should be made as earnestly as possible. “Those of us who see hardworking apprentices attending the evening classes,” be added, “and being forced to attend drill halls where , they go through a series of evolutions which don’t interest them, are struck by the pathetic side of it. Real hardship would be caused by, the regulation, which only burdens those who are working hard to get on in the world under difficulties, which are already considerable.” . The motion was carried unanimously.