CHILD LABOUR

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 10897, 11 May 1921, Page 5

CHILD LABOUR

TEACHERS COMPLAIH SAID TO BE BECOMING INCREASINGLY COMMON. PROTECTION URGED, At the Technical Schools’ Conference yesterday, Dr. D. -E-_ Hansen (Christchurch) moved that it should he made illegal to employ for wages for full time or part Time any child of 1 sohool age. Dr. Han6cn said cases were known iof employers employing children of school age, and the employers must have known that the children were not old enough to have left school. _Ho mentioned that children were found in the technical schools with whom, the teachers had no chance because the children had had no education of any kind. Children were to provide cheap labour in not so much with industries, as with various kinds of unskilled labour. a The conference should draw attention to the necessity for keeping up the school age. It had been provided that the age should be raised to fifteen years. It was becoming increasingly common to find boys and girls of school age working full time. He understood that even if a boy or a girl had a sixth standard certificate he, or she, was not free to leave school. . ... Other delegatee disagreed with this. Dr Hansen: 1 have consulted the inI spectors. _ A delegate: The Education Board can compel them if they choose, but they don’t. Dr. Hansen: “Anyhow we have too many parents allowing t children to evade their proper education,- ana the i employers are responsible, too. ’Those | who were watching what was i ing in the Old Country would find that i employment of children was very strictly regulated to the age of fourteen I years. Only a certain amount of erai pioyment was allowed —say in the ! morning or the afternoon. This was a matter in which we were far behind the Old Country. Wo talked of being to the front; this was a matter we were far behind in. A medical comi mission, recently showed the ill effects of boys and girls working while still at school. He took it .that school age was fifteen years and his interest in the ; matter was to give the children a chance of developing physically. \ It was resolved: “That the conference is strongly opposed to'the principle of child labour, and urges the Government to frame regulations safei guarding Hie interests of children under ochool age.”