TRAINING AND "WETNURSING"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 20, 24 January 1924, Page 4

TRAINING AND "WETNURSING"

A Dunedin building. employer is reported as saying: "I want apprentices, but T-don't see my way to wet-nurse them." He has laid himself open to the retort from some parent or trade union representative: "We want the boys taught skilled trades, not employed to fetch and carry for the whole term of their apprenticeship." We hope that the Dunedin employer was not expressing the opinion of master-builders generally, though "The. Post's" correspondent in quoting his statement said that employers were not keen on indenturing lads to the carpentry trade because the conditions imposed by law gave the masters considerable trouble. It is probably correct that these conditions are onerous, but they have been held to be necessary. The masterbuilder is not the only person concerned in a contract of apprenticeship. The lad and his parents must also be considered, and there have been complaints'in the past that the obligations of upproutiqe* ship pn the piaster's side w_ere not

always fulfilled, with the consequence that journeymen were being turned out who'were skilled tradesmen in name only. To avoid this abuse conditions of apprenticeship have been imposed.

Of course employers are still free to say: "We will not be bothered apprentices." If they do so, they themselves will be the great-" est sufferers, as they have been under the old conditions which produced few tradesmen, and some of those incompetent. The employers will continue to complain that they cannot obtain the skilled labour they need, and that they are obliged to obtain tradesmen from England who are not always satisfactory because they "'do not understand local methods. Or else they will be bidding, against each other for the local labour, and, of course, passing the bids,: on to the public. Probably this trouble will be greater than that ' involved in assuring, an adequate supply, of well-trained young tradesmen. Employers cannot expect to obtain their skilled labour ! without trouble. Parents will not apprentice their boys if they are not to be trained, and a system has not yet been devised for New j Zealand which will relieve the master-tradesmen of the training task "and place it wholly in- the hands of a school board. Conditions of apprenticeship were considered last year by a committee representative of all parties. That committee was unable .to recommend the abolition of the system. Therefore it remains,, and it is the duty of employers, as well as to their advantage, that they should accept the system and help to make it efficient.