CAN YOU HELP?

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 119, 23 May 1933, Page 9

CAN YOU HELP?

THE WORKLESS BOY A CALL FOR ACTION I (Contributed by Lon. J. Greenberg.) That lad isn't lounging about because ho likes lounging about. Look at his face. Only eighteen years of life in tho fairest of all the Dominions, yet tho flush of youth is leaving him, and the lines of future manhood arc becoming furrows deepened by care and youthful despair. ' There was a day when ho was told ho must have ambition, when pictures were presented to him of a world j spacious and splendid in its opportunities for the lad who desired to get "to tho top." There was a day when he, like other lads, dreamt of a career in which ho was the central figure, and in which he won suge'ess and the plaudits of his fellows. But now his dream of tho future has faded into the distant bygones.* Tho fear that no boyhood dream of his can ever find; a place in his maturity adds to the dilemma of his soul. He has heard the older men Speak of the war and all they endured. It must have been terrible! But could it have been worse than he is suffering now? Life seems so hopeless. The cruel circumstance which is menacing his manhood in. the future is destroying his youth now—for ho has nothing to do. And try as ho may nobody wants him, and few seem even to care. SILENT SUFFERERS. This lad is one of hundreds who wander about in our midst like unhappy ghosts'. They are the silent and inarticulate sufferers in the present stato of our economics. . Mystified by their failure to find work, and listening to tlio many specious explanations as to why they cannot find work, they stumble on, rendering themselves easy prey to those who have no love cither for them or. that order of society of which, even in its breakdown, they are an essential part. Tho lad wo.arc concerned about is merely asking for that which is the right of every normal lad—the right to work, the right. to express himself in iSoine creative effort. Time, that once was, and still ought to be precious to him, now hangs heavily on his bands. Leisure that was given him to use - .is j now consuming him. His valuable learn- j ing time has no,significance to him in tho absence, of any demand for his essential earning power, and so. he', lias | no heart even to attend classes for his improvement. . , There are already, as you see, signs oh his face of physical and moral deterioration; Soon he will cease looking for work, and will sink into that coma of apathy from which the only outlet is some youthful excess, and then co-mo the blaime and censure of thqse who do not understand. And then, when at last work comes his way again, he will not be able to tackle it, or ho will have been left behind in the race by the new generation of youngsters coming on. . , Somehow we must lay tho plight of this lad on the conscience of the community. Our religious, leaders tell him to'"have'! faith. Our political leaders mako promise of something in the future; but do little in ' the present. Our social workers arc prc-occupied with the major problem of feeding the hungry and caring for tho adult worklesa. Our leaders in commerce say that nothing can be done until business improves.' Meanwhile the lad becomes an increasing burcien to himself and to' tho family who are struggling to keep him. . r _ ;.; ,',.,..• •'SOMEB'OpV "MUST CARE." We caiihot, tho Government cannot, solve the problem of juvenile unemployment/but that surely does not absolve .us.'from the duty of doing^ more than is'feeing done for the worklcss boy, especially the older youth and younger JUfin, - who in time of w-ar would .be -regarded as the cream of the population, and the enlistment of whoso services would bo demanded and,' legislated tor. Surely somebody must care!' There are youths'in our community who have not done a tap of work for two years. There are well-educated lads remaining compjilsorily'.at school, whose parents are becoming, well, nigh, desperate, and can ill afford to'keep them at school. There are .lads wandering the streets in 'sandshoes with nothing to do and nowhere to go, and merely swelling the ranks of the drifters and ne'er-do-wells. . ~ ■ . . ' •'•''. There are ,boys coming from good homes, having had money spent on their education, who are occupying dead-end;, purposeless jobs, working for harassed employers for merely a pittance per week, and with absolutely no prospects. These are the lads who' will reinforce, tho ranks of the vocationlcss and the unemployed of the future. .Well-meaning folk.' have devised schemes for absorbing. boys in employment. Many of these contain ideas which have much to commend them. ■"'Sooner or later this ■ country, which in the past has boasted of its advanced legislation, must find, some solution for those aspects of- the juvenile vocational problem which pre-dated the depression, and will persist when the present unemployed- have gone back to work, i In the meantime, however, the most1 helpful scheme is that in which an employer, without prejudicing the employment: of any adult,: will, as an act of conimuuity service and goodwill, take an extra lad, especially an. older lad, on his staff. The Boy Employment Committee at tho V.M.C.A., despite the very commendable result of having placed 450 boys in employment this year, still has 550 registered on-the roll, and those who aro in a position to know, state that this represents only a proportion of our Wellington boys who are waiting a chance. . -, ■ • Can you/help? Can you find a place, if only for one? ~