TELL THEM THE TRUTH

NZ Truth, Issue 1255, 19 December 1929, Page 1

TELL THEM THE TRUTH

■» -■ ■■ - Boy Migrants Are Misinformed "CHEAP LABOR" In its conception, perhaps,- the idea of bringing public school boys, and youths generally, out from the Old Country to, go on the land, is well intended, but the weak part of the whole scheme is that it does not go far enough, and consequently to a great extent is a» failure. QAREFUL. enquiries reveal the fact . that there is the old business of misleading the applicants as to the real conditions they are likely . to «nGpunter^.oia_.thGjr_{}.wi\:aL. „_.... . A certain', rosiness must naturally enter into any youth's conception of a new life seen at a distance, but there is no doubt that the true conditions are not sufficiently stressed. Ignorance of Dominion conditions is still pi'evalent m the- Old Country. Moreover, it is doubtful whether parents give sufficient thought to the qualifications of sons willing to meet life overseas. It is asking a lot of a boy not yet out of his teens to determine a course between wisdom and folly n'r between grit and moral cowardice. From ,what "N.Z. Truth" has been able /to gather from' schoolboy immigrants It has met, there is a lamentable ignorance at Horn! concerning conditions m New Zealand. 'For instance, conditions oh Some farms here are not all roses. Among the boys interviewed by "Truth," one, who had been away back north, had a room about six by eight to share with a Maori. s Another boy writes: "Having come out here myself some time ago under one of the many schemes now employed m bringing younj? English fellows out here who intend taking up agricultural pursuits, I can say from personal experience that these societies are having a very disastrous effect. "Owing to an immense amount of propaganda and spurious literature which is being circulated m England at the present time regarding this country, these boys not unnaturally imagine that they are coming to a Garden of Eden, a sort, of . earthly paradise, where troubles fail to exist, and where fortunes, metaphorically speaking, are almost thrusting themselves out of the land, and are only awaiting their arrival to be plucked. "On their arrival here these boys for the most part are placed on dairy farms on a starvation wage (for the cockles, as the New Zealander calls them, are by no means a wealthy class, and are only able to afford the bare necessities of life) and are looked upon as a cheap means of labor. "Added to which, these boys, who are not infrequently of a higher social standing than the farmer himself, are looked upon as very little m&Va than menials, to I be exploited whenever possible. I "The result is that these boys, their I cherished ideas scattered to the winds, become absolutely discouraged at the very outset of life. . . „ "Is it not high time that these societies for immigration of young fellows, if not altogether stopped, should at least be thoroughly investigated and the boys given a thorough /understanding of what will be required of them out here before they are persuaded to forsake their homes and en^ ter upon what to them is their life's great enterprise?"