“THE BOY.”

Waikato Times, Volume 111, Issue 18638, 17 May 1932, Page 10

“THE BOY.”

NATION’S BEST ASSET. UNEMPLOYED YOUTH PROBLEM. EFFORT TO ERADICATE. "The prosperity of any nation is dependent on the human element and a nation's best asset is its aouth, said Mr N. G. Gribble, president ot Farm and City Careers, in an address to the Hamilton Rotary Club yesterday on unemployment amongst boys and girls. ..... “An Australian statistician con-siders-that human capital is worth four times property capital, and an \merican authority says seven times, in New Zealand we have only 15 people to the square mile, and the -proportion of population In metropolitan areas is 32 per cent. —the largest In the world. And yet we have 40,000 hoys and girls unemployed in lhe Dominion and 12,000 boys leave school each year with poor hopes of employment, while there arc all those idle acres in the country. “Of the boys leaving school each year one-third are in Auckland. Roughly 20 per cent, of these go to agriculture in normal times and 00 per cent, to Government posts, professions and town jobs—the openings for the 60-per cent, are now closed. More boys should be drafted to agriculture, and the fault at present is that our educational system does not create an agricultural palate.” A Melanoholy Thought. The Governor-General has said, continued Mr Gribble, that “although those in urban areas did not always realise it, the secondary industries and the people employed in them were dependent on primary industries. With the New Zealand soil and climate the country was capable of immeasurably greater land output and pastoral and agricultural wealth.” Sir Charles Fergusson had said: “One of the things that has been forced upon me everywhere I have been lias been the insistent cry of ‘Back to lhe land.’ The land seems to be the last tiling New Zealand boys will think of—that seems very melancholy to me.” Underlying the unfortunate reluctance of boys to go on the land were the following:— (a) The wrong trend of our educational system. (b) Protected professions and trades hold out hopes of extravagant returns, though the value to the community may be small. (c) .Growth of public enterprise with cohorts of civil servants in sheltered positions. (d) Penalising, and in some cases destruction, of private enterprise. (e) High standard of. social service amenities made possible by taxation and distribution of produce-handling charges in centres. (f) Unwise exaggeration of disadvantages and lack of prospects of country life. (g) Losing contact with normal country life. “There are 4 0,000 boys and girls in New Zealand for sale,” continued the speaker, “and they will -sell themselves to the highest bidder—Communism perhaps. The fault is I hat we have lost the confidence of our children. We must not talk, we must act. To fill the need the Future Farmers Committee's guiding principles arc—“l. That the lad should go into a decent home where he would have reasonable living conditions and a certain element of home life. “2. That the farmer to whom he went was capable of giving him a satisfactory training in farming practice. “3. That when the lad was efficient there were reasonable prospects of his securing a farm of his own.” Work Accomplished. Since the movement was started, 12 months ago, over 300 boys had been placed in positions in town or country. Their weekly payroll totalled £275, and the total costs had been under £l5O. Executive expenses were only £2 a week for a most eillcient clerk. No financial assistance had been received from the Government, and it was felt that the committee ■work should be kept apart from Government Departments, as their participation would be fatal to the movement. Twenty-eight different organisations helped with the work. Owing to the extended scope of the work the committee’s name had been changed to Farm and City Careers. Mr Gribble appealed for the cooperation of the audience with tho work in hand. The matter was urgent and brooked no delay. Disintegration and deterioration were rapidly setting in among the younger generation. “In conclusion,” said Mr Gribble, “I would quote Mussolini, who stated: ‘When an Italian emigrant left his country, Italy, in exhange for a little gold subsequently sent by him from abroad, suffered the material loss of all that she had spent to nourish him, to educate him, and lo make him a producer; from a military point of view she lost a soldier; while from the Point of view of population she lost a youthful and strong element which would fertilise foreign lands and give his children lo foreign countries.’ “This man,” concluded Mr Gribhlf* "appreciates that the boy Is the nation’s best asset.”