LABOUR MATTERS.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15229, 4 May 1923, Page 7

LABOUR MATTERS.

POSITION OF APPRENTICES. AN IMPORTANT CONFERENCE. By Telegraph —Press Association. WELLINGTON, Thursday. A conference of representatives of employers’ and workers’ organisations was opened by the Minister of Labour, Hon. G. J. Anderson, yesterday, to consider proposals drafted witti a view to improving- conditions regarding apprenticeship. The Minister said he regarded the conference as beng one of the most important held in New Zealand, for if it was successful in overcoming the difficulties of teaching young people trades it would be easier to achieve greater prosperity for the Dominion in future. Since the slump unemploy.ment bad begun to increase, and it was found that a large proportion of the sufferers were those engaged in blind-alley occupations. Unemployment had been overcome -to a large extent, and to-day there was not much more than half the number unemployed on the Labour Department books as there was a year ago. lie .wanted a full and frank discussion on the proposals drafted, and said that after the Bill was prepared any matters considered vital would be subject for evidence before the Labour Bills Committee. He proposed to circulate the result of the deliberations of the conference to union workers and employers and the general public. It seemed to him that apprenticeship in future would have lo ho on a different basis than in the past, and ho thought that technical schodls, and even primary schools, could work in sucli a way Dial boys and .girls could be selected for trades’when it was considered that they were unfitted for professional occupations. He thought it was the duty of (he schools to advise parents. The conference is discussing the question in private, the Minister stating that reports of (.he proceedings would be supplied later.