The Evening Star THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1932. EMPLOYMENT FOR BOYS.

Evening Star, Issue 21292, 22 December 1932, Page 8

The Evening Star THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1932. EMPLOYMENT FOR BOYS.

There is nothing very novel in the report of Mr Ansell and Mr Smith, M.P.s, who were entrusted by the Go- ■ vernment with investigating the whole problem of employment for boys. After the way in which the question had been threshed out by vocational guidance committees and other authorities, nothing very'novel was to be expected. There is no “ magic cure ” for this problem any more than there is for financial depression. It is something, however, that official, as well as unofficial, attention is now being turned to the need. In the past the Government has always taken the line, naturally enough, that employment for adults must be its concern before the employment of boys, and the vast scale of the first problem has almost excluded the second from its attention. It is unlikely that it will have much money to spend on it now while adult relief makes its present demands, and for this as well as other reasons Messrs Ansell and Smith are wise in recommending that the problem will be best dealt with, for the most part, by local organisations and citizens. The investigators were well chosen for their task. Mr Ansell is a level-headed man, and Mr Smith was chairman of the first Unemployment Board. There is no doubt that they have pursued their inquiries with much thoroughness and zeal, one in the South Island and the other in the North. Having heard all opinions, the proposals they put forth are in substance those that have been always urged by the Dunedin Vocational Guidance Committee. Unpromising as is farming at the present moment, they believe that it is on the

land, not in the cities, that the majority of New Zealand boys will find a career which will have most advantage both to themselves and this dominion. In that they are undoubtedly right, and, despite all the difficulties that exist at present, immediate openings promise to bo found more easily for them on the land. The committee has two main schemes—for placing youths with individual farmers, and for placing them, after they have gained some experience, as settlers on less developed Crown land where they would be aided for a beginning to support themselves, and where, by relays of courses at the nearest college, provision would be made for their farming education. We have less hopes of the second scheme than of the first. From past statements it would appear that there is not much reasonably accessible Crown land which would be suitable for the second. The scheme would seem overambitious; there would be dangers in a lack of supervision; and its cost would probably work out beyond all estimates. The Dunedin Vocational Committee, on the other hand, has placed a large number of boys with individual farmers, and there is hardly one of them who has not given satisfaction. If the Government would subsidise wages where that is required for the extension of this method the farmer would be helped, production would be helped, and the surest way would be taken to make new farmers. The Government has had some shadowy system of subsidising wages to a very small extent in such cases, but the conditions with which it is hedged about have made it almost inoperative. The investigators’ plans for promoting the expert education of these youths in the off seasons of farm work are all in the right direction. Its ideas for promoting side-employments for the sons of farmers which will keep them on the land should not be without their value. In regard to town employment, reference is made to the grave problem of uncompleted apprenticeships, involving the danger of a dearth of skilled workers at some future time, and .the proposal is endorsed that such periods of unemployment should be utilised as far as possible for instruction in the technical schools, two years of technical training counting as one of apprenticeship. That is being done in at least one British State; the technical schools are willing and anxious; there seems no reason why, under right regulations, the system should not be adopted here.