BOYS FOR THE LAND.

Evening Star, Issue 20274, 7 September 1929, Page 14

BOYS FOR THE LAND.

A decision of Cabinet 'which was announced during the week for the training of New Zealand boys for farming docs not go so far as many people may have wished. A practical short course of this kind which is worthy of initiation is that given at Flock House, near Bulls, to young British immigrants. So useful has this training proved and so eager has been the demand of farmers for the services of those who have benefited by it that the cry lias been raised at times: “Why should these boys be brought out to the dominion to fill jobs that are less easily available for New Zealanders?” The cry ignores the circumstances in which the Flock House scheme was started and its special character as a trust. In July, 1918, when the submarine peril was at its worst and the war on land was looking black, the Imperial Government notified that it proposed to return to New Zealand half of the profits of its wool sold for civilian needs, and it occurred to some New Zealanders to wonder whether they had not also a debt to pay. The men of the navy, the mercantile marine, and the fishing fleets had kept the seas open at sore cost to themselves, but to the inestimable advantage of New Zealand. Thousands of them had been killed or incapacitated for future work, and a bad prospect threatened their dependants. A scheme was devised to help these by encouraging them to come to New Zealand, teaching them farming, and assisting them to obtain places with farmers, so that in due course they might .acquire farms '.of their own. Tmstees were appointed in this country, with an Advisory Committee in London, and a sheep station, partially improved, was purchased, where the boys could bo taught, not farming, but enough ol the beginnings of farming to make them worth twenty shillings a week and their “ keep ” to farmers to whom they might be indentured after a six or eight months 1 course. About four hundred boys and perhaps a hundred girls, trained for countrv work, have now passed through FJock House. The hoys are indentured for three years to farmers, and we have the best authority for stating that there is alwaj'S a waiting list of employers, and that twice as many lads as the station turns out could be employed. Though these youths mostly come from British seaports they learn to prefer a country life, and the farm is run on commercial lines, so that it pays interest to-day on all the capital that has been sunk in it. The after supei’vision of the indentured boys is a main element of the scheme.

The Government is not imitating for New Zealand boys tho scheme which has been carried out so successfully by a Sheepowners’ Committee. That may come later. All that is proposed so far is a system of apprenticing, or more often of merely recommending to selected farmers local youths with a desire for a life on the land without any preliminary training, as is done for youths sent out here by the English Public Schoolboys’ Association. Tho scheme will be under the direction of the Under-Secretary of Immigration, who looks after tho English boys, Tho wage will be ten shillings to fifteen shillings a week for the first three months, and after the first increment an indenture, limited in any case to a six months’ term, though this will not normally be a feature of the scheme. Even under this system, when it is under way, we shad not be doing so much for New Zealand boys, apart from those who pass through agricultural colleges, as is done (though hot by the Government) for a proportion oi British immigrants; but a beginning will have been made which may be extended into something like the Flock House provision.