CITIZENS' COMMITTEE

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

CITIZENS' COMMITTEE

ACTIVITIES REVIEWED Keportiug to the Citizens' Boy Employment Committee yesterday the secretary (Mr. L. Grecnbcrg) stated that since January 1 positions had been found for 443 boys. In ■ eighty-five cases boys had been placed on farms and generally were doing well. It Was very gratifying to note that m April the placements had exceeded the registrations by five, and the same thing ■ was happening this month. Up to yesterday tho registrations were sixty-four, and the placements seventyfour. From the fact that the net number of registered boys awaiting jobs was 534 it could be seen that the need for work was as great as ever. Mr. Greenberg said that the Wclliiigton Unemployment Bureau was lending the committee an officer.whose duty it would be to keep track of the boys who had registered. Altogether, 1.607 boya had registered-since- the committee was inaugurated last September. The committee was particularly interested in the letters received from some of the boys placed on farms. Onu boy wrote that he was on Jiis third job in eight months. He had saved enough on his last job on a dairy farm to buy a horse, saddle, and bridle, and had bee*n four days on the road travelling to his next job. He was now a farm manager ill Tarauaki, and was "feeling- fine." Another boy -wrote that lie- would rather be on his farm than round the streets. Ho had recommended the

training camp at Penroso to several boys at Pctone, but evidently they preferred to stay at home. A third letter was from an ex-collcgc boy from Wellington who was employed on a farm -"liich carried 1500 head of cattle, and who found working from (i a.m. to C.15 p.m. congenial, "as the boss« does not. try to break our backs with work:/' ; Investigation of tho problem of matriculated lads who wero unemployed was left to a special committee consisting of Messrs. A. Gibbs (Citizens' Committee), B. Cahill (St. Patrick's Old Boys' Association), W. A. Armour (Wellington College), and A. A. Kirk (Technical College). \ Mr. Greenberg submitted a list of >fifty matriculated lads whoso parents had exhausted all avenues in the attempt to find work for their boys. Tho conclusion they and he had come to was that for the time being the professions and the Public Service were closed to these boys.