OUR BOYS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4311, 21 March 1901, Page 5

OUR BOYS.

WHAT BECOMES OF THEM? THEY DO NOT SEEK TO ENTER BANKS. The scarcity of boys to take positions in mercantile offices was discussed yesterday in the “ New Zealand Times.” Further inquiries made by a “ Times ” representative show that the difficulty is also severely felt in some of the banks. “Not so long ago,” said one bank manager, “it was the custom to have a sheaf of applications that high”—and lie measured with ids hand—“ when a billet was vacant. The difficulty then was to choose from, amongst so many. Now it is the other way about; we cannot get boys to apply. As a matter of fact, we have been advertising for-two boys to fill junior posts in this bank, and we can’t get them.” “At what age do you take on boys, as a rule P” “ When they are about sixteen, or just when a boy is leaving school. .A lad starts with £3O for the first year—and I think you will admit that that is a fair salary, for we have to teach him everything at the start. Then in the second year ho gets £46, and in the third £6O, and if he is worth keeping, he is then taken on. to the staff.” “How is it that the applications for those posts are so few at the present time ?”

“ I cannot understand it at all. Perhaps, as was suggested in your paper this-morning, there are more boys going to trades. But, even so, a boy who wants to learn a trade generally finds some office training at the start of considerable benefit to himself. Whatever the cause, however, there is the fact.”

“Arc the vacancies ns numerous as before ?” “ They are not so numerous, perhaps, as when the banks were opening branches in every country town; but when a dredging boom cr something of the kind comes along, bank clerks are often infected with the fever just like other people, and rush off to start iu .business for themselves. This, of course, creates a number of vacancies.’' Another banking official in another part of the city had a similar story to tell.

■ “ Whereas a year or two ago we were besieged with applications,” said he, “we now have great difficulty in obtaining boys. What the cause of it is, I dlo not know. We even raised the salary for boys from £25 to £4O the other day to try to induce boys to ceme.” Tiie explanation given by another offi. cial was that the conditions of banking service were not sufficiently attractive. The salaries, he pointed out, are small, and the prospects of promotion fardistant.

This view of the case, on the other hand, was condemned by yet another bank manager. “If you take the conditions of life in the banks, and compare them with the conditions in mercantile offices,” said he, “you will find that the bank clerk has much the best of the X know that the banks are always getting slated about the treatment of the clerics, but I can assure you that there is a great deal of mis-

appi-ahension amongst, the public on tao subject. The bank clerk has more holidays and leave of absence, and his hours are no longer.” *' What about overtime?”

“Therisa good; deal of exaggeration about this question of overtime,” re. plied the banker. “ Sometimes, I admit, it is necessary for everyone to work at high! pressure, but if you take the hours as they are, you will find that they are not so long as in your own profession, for instance.” At the same time, he urns glad to find that a larger number of boys wire going in for trades. It was, he thought, a healthy sign.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE INDUSTRIAL, ASSOCIATION. The opinions of Mr Samuel Brown, who is president of the Wellington Industrial Association, will naturally have considerable weight upon this question. “I do not believe that there is any great scarcity of boy labour/’ Mr Brown told a representative of the ‘‘New Zealand Times.” “I am inclined to believe that the difficulty is greatly exaggerated-” ‘Tf the statements are true,’’ he continued, when assured that tho ! general view of those concerned in tliis question was that such a scarcity undoubtedly existed, “I think one of the causes must be that numbers of boys have gone into the country to take the places of those who have gone to South Africa. The farmers have had to take boys to, fill these places, and the lads are getting higher wages than if they had remained in town. Another reason is that there has been a general extension-of business. There is a largo harvest just now, and the dredging industry has absorbed a large supply of labour." “I believe,” he continued, "that there is something in the suggestion that a larger nfgmber of hoys are going on to the secondary schools; but Ido hot think the other suggestion, that more hoys are going in for trades, will hold water. If we take the’ Wellington College, : find that the number of boys there has considerably increased as compared with a few years ago. At that time many parents could not afford to send their boys to college, because it was a, question of bread and butter, and they wanted their lads to earn money as sokm aa possible. Now this is not so. Times are fairly good, and they can afford to give then- children a better education. But so far as the trades are concerned, there are restrictions in every trade except those of engineers and carpenters." “In what way?”

“In this way, that the unions have succeeded in getting .the number of boys limited in painting, plumbing, ehoemaking, baking and various other trades, so that there are very few trades now open to boys. The- number is limited by the Arbitration Court in all trades except engineering and carpentering. This seems to me a grave mistake, and I have raised my voice against it time after time. The unions hope, by restricting the ntgmher of boys, to keep the trades exclusive, but at the same time they cannot prevent people from coming here; and I say that no boy ought to be debarred from earning an honest livelihood. I quite agree that an employer ought not to be allowed to keep a boy for a year or two and then turn him adrift; hut the Arbitration Court has prevented that by requiring boys to be apprenticed. And any boy ought to be allowed to be apprenticed and to earn an honest livelihood. This is going to bo a very serious question.” Mr Brown reasoned that the reported scarcity of boy labour was exaggerated because, if labour had been plentiful a year of two ago, there had not boeri such an extraordinary' rush of business' as to absorb it all in this way. To sura up, he gave three causes as likely to account for any such scarcity. “First, in many cases, no doubt, parents are allowing their boys to stay longer at school; second, there has been a certain extension of trade, and in many instances, boys are taken in preference to men because they are cheaper; third, numbers of boys have gon-;

I into the country to take the place of I others now m South At llosl - **> r ™}' ded Mr Brown, ‘you take away twi or (three thousand men, the bone aart sinew of the country, and send teem away to South Africa, you must feel it severely.”