UNEMPLOYED YOUTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21201, 6 June 1932, Page 8

UNEMPLOYED YOUTH.

It is estimated by the Auckland Committee of Church Leaders that there are over 20,000 unemployed boys and youths between the ages of 15 and 20 years for whom the relief system makes no provision. This in itself constitutes a national problem of the utmost gravity, and the efforts of the committee to arouse the community to more practical methods of mitigating the consequences of enforced idleness to youth should produce a sense of individual obligation throughout the ranks of those who are not workless. The problem is not a new one. It revealed its melancholy head three or four years ago, but has grown steadily ever since. To-day there are youths on the threshold of manhood who have never done anything but a. little casual work which has taught them nothing. Not only do they suffer the disadvantage of facing life without a craft, but also without the habits of industry regular disciplined employment teaches. They are doubly handicapped, particularly if they have been taught to expect all that they demand from life. There is vast scope in this sphere for the best that brains, energy and enthusiasm can devise. What is needed more than anything is the _ <r good neighbour" to whom the Prince of Wales recently appealed, and all that is implied by the term. "My appeal," said His Royal Highness in his Call to Youth which was just as much a call for youth, "is not to statesmen, nor even to philanthropists, but to all those who are in work to play the part of neighbour and friend to the man out of work." "Every member of the elder generation," said the Prince in another passage, "can be a partner in a joint enterprise—in the proj motion of youth's opportunity—to see

that every boy and girl has a fair chance. Let each one of us ask of hitaself what he is doing or is prepared to do, to give them that chance." That is the question for New Zealand also. The burden of adult unemployment must not be allowed to overshadow the responsibility to youth. Even if at the moment the Unemployment Board has its hands full the community cannot with, good conscience allow the problem of the boy and youth to drift indefinitely. Whatever plans may be devised it is inevitable that some lack of the spirit of co-opera-tion will reveal itself among the youths, but this attitude is only another argument for activity. So far the youth has been a victim of his environment and the financial circumstances of the country, and the "good neighbour" is his greatest need.