LABOUR CORPS

Waikato Independent, Volume XL, Issue 3677, 7 March 1940, Page 7

LABOUR CORPS

PROPOSAL FOR BRITISH YOUTH EARL OF DERBY'S SCHEME Proposals for a "youth labour corps" have been brought to the notice of the Ministry of Labour and the Board of Education. The corps would comprise youth's between 16 and 20, who would normally enter a military college, one of the universities or business life, but whose immediate careers have been interrupted by the war. Working lads between these ages are catered for by junior instruction centres arranged by the Board and the Ministry and by Government training centres run by the Ministry of Labour. For boys who would normally continue their education in higher fields or enter business or industry, there are no such opportunities, unless they care to abandon their ambitions completely. The Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, have been closed since the beginning of the war. New conditions have : made it impossible for many families to send their sons to a university. Others who would have

entered business houses direct are unable to do so because of the approach of military age.

To prevent these youths from falling- into idleness, the Earl of Derby, author of the Derby Scheme of the last war, has advocated that they should be formed into units working on the land, in forestry or other industries, and in the Dominions and Colonies.

The scheme, he suggests, should be voluntary, and those who joined would be given a uniform or working dress, god billets, and pocket-money. Lord Derby has suggested to the Government that such an organisation should be brought,into being. At the moment, many of these boys have nothing to do. They are

too young for national service, yet the approach of military age denies them a normal start in higher education or industry. It is urged that a voluntary labour corps would' not only fill' a dangerous gap in their lives, but also fit them for military training when the time comes.