UNEMPLOYED BOYS

Evening Star, Issue 21291, 21 December 1932, Page 15

UNEMPLOYED BOYS

MESSRS ANSELL'S AND SMITH'S REPORT LOOKING TO THE LAND EXTENSION OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING RECOMMENDED [Special to the ‘ Star.’] WELLINGTON, December 20. A special number of constructive suggestions for coping with the problem of unemployment among boys are included in a .lengthy report submitted to the Government by Mr A. E. Ansell, M.P. for Chalmers, and Mr S. G. Smith, M;P., a former Minister of Labour, who had been requested to undertake a complete investigation of the position. The report is to be published this week, and will, your correspondent understands, show that in spite of the black outlook for farming at the moment, the committee strongly believes that openings for New Zealand youth are mainly to be found on the land. The principal recommendation, consequently, is that, in addition to organising arrangements for placing town boys with farmers, under the ■friendly supervision of voluntary workers, the Government should provide areas of undeveloped land to 1 be improved by boys who have already, bj T land experience and agricultural education, shown promise of becoming successful farmers. They would be placed on these areas and paid a sustenance wage while carrying out the improvements and be ultimately given the right to acquire a section, the committee being of opinion that, with intensive working and the application of scientific methods, allotments need not exceed seventy-five acres. Something has also to be done, in the committee’s opinion, to provide specialised farm training for sons of farmers who are unable to provide that opportunity under the present difficult circumstances. They could be specially trained to take up important side lines, such as pig raising and certified seed production on their parents’ farms. After describing the great difficulties in maintaining the apprenticeship system, the committee stresses the point that unless New Zealand youths are trained in craftsmanship, they will be the unskilled labourers of the future, and that, in normal times, it will be necessary to import skilled artisans. This danger should, they consider, be avoided by a further extension of vocational training in technical schools with a recognition of the time in the apprenticeship period. Emphasising that there is no' comparable substitute for the splendid voluntary work already being done in coping with the boy unemployment problem, the committee recommends an extension of the existing organisations with a local executive generally to direct the work, and they make a strong appeal to public spirited citizens to take a hand in what they declare to be the most acute human problem with which this generation has been called upon to deal.