TRAINING APPRENTICES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19601, 1 April 1927, Page 10

TRAINING APPRENTICES.

. The Minister of Labour is responsible for a startling .statement in his review of the situation governing the apprenticeship of boys to i skilled trades. Fortunately he absolves his colleagues from any association with his views... The facts he gives show clearly enough that something must be . done. He is justified in saying young people have a right to enter a trade, and that they must be taught it properly. The drift of boys into unskilled, often blind alley occupations, and the undue preference sho.wh for what are generally called "white collar" positions have long been properly deplored. A remedy is needed. If the 1923 legislation has not done any good, if it is not capable of producing better results, something more effective must be provided. Mr. Anderson says if the present Act does not meet requirements, he can see no alternative to the State taking up the task of teaching the young people trades. .He says there is no reason why the State should not provide for instructing the young carpenter any less than for the young dentist, lawyer, doctor or engineer. If he can see no reason, other people will speedily find hundreds of them, apart from the fact that the State does not, except in part and indirectly, provide for training in the professions he quotes. Does he propose to centralise all the training for a given trade in one place, or does he realise what it would mean, in the alternative, to establish schools capable of turning out fully trained carpenters, plumbers, fitter®, bricklayers, electricians and tradesmen of a dozen other kinds, all up and down the Country 'I The Minister has obviously . spoken without fully weighing his words. He would be well advised to reconsider the position and arrive at a decision rather leas impossible in character than the one he has just described.