RELUCTANCE TO FARM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20402, 2 November 1929, Page 15

RELUCTANCE TO FARM.

"UNDUE LOVE OF SPORT." DOMINION BOYS CRITICISED. TRAINING AT FLOCK HOUSE. [BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Friday. The New Zealand boy's love o! sport and his disinclination to take up a career on the land were criticised by the Hon. E. Newman, M.L.C., when addressing tho contributors to the New Zealand Sheepowners' Acknowledgment of Debt to British Seamen Fund at the annual meeting to-day. While making it clear that ho had nothing against sport and appreciated it as much as anyone, Mr. Newman said he considered that among New Zealand boys there was an undue love of spoil. He knew as well as anyone that sport was necessary for young people, but it could be carried too far.

Boys from Home, said Mr. Newman, teemed better able to settle down to conditions in the Dominion. Many of the English boys had never been on a racecourse in their lives and they were not taken up with racing, as New Zealand boys seemed to be. Ho considered the New Zealand boys and girls were the best in the world, but ho could not help noticing that tho boys and girls sent out from Home were more willing to go into the back-blocks. They were willing to take back-country work and in that way differed from the colonial boy. Certain labour unions had seen fit to pass resolutions asking tho Government to discourage English boys coming to New Zealand, Flock House boys being included. "There is," said Mr. Newman, "a marked disinclination on the part of the New Zealand boy to take up country life, in a country where the wholo of tho wealth comes from the land. This is rather a deplorablo fact. Equally unfortunate is tho position as regards tho girls. Unless the girls aro prepared to go into the country, the boys will not go. The girls, I am informed, are more disinclined to go on the land than tho boys and will not marry anyone going into the country. "One of the problems to-day is the difficulty of getting trained farm workers. It seems almost impossible to get a man not requiring constant supervision. Many parts of the North Island are left undeveloped owing to tho scarcity of farm labour. There aro indications of the shortage of farm labour everywhere. "Very few farmers in New Zealand have the inclination, and many have not the temperament, to teach boys farming. Especially is this so in the case of farmers with valuable stock, for they do not care to let inexperienced boys handle them. We are doing an important work in training boys for the land and I think the unions that passed the resolutions I referred to did not act wisely."