CITY OR FARM?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 381, 15 June 1928, Page 1

CITY OR FARM?

EDUCATION’S EFFECT ON EMPLOYMENT BANKING CHIEFS OPINION (From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-%lay. ‘T have no remedial scheme to offer in regard to this great industrial problem, common to all parts of the world,” said Sir George Elliot, chairman of the Bank of New Zealand, at the annual meeting of shareholders to-day, "but I would draw attention to one phase of New Zealand conditions that bears on the subject, and does not, I think, receive the consideration it deserves. “The official Year Book tells us that, according to the last census of 1921, the total number of breadwinners in the Dominion numbered 533,000, and of that number 152,000 were engaged in primary production. It also tells us that, according to the latest available figures, 1925-26, the total production for the year amounted to £116,000,000. To this total, primary producers contributed £82,000,000, and the product of factories, building operations. and labourers’ work contributed £34,000,000. It thus appears that primary producers, being less than one-third of the breadwinners, contributed more than twothirds toward the national wealth, while the two-thirds engaged in all other occupations contributed less than onethird.” In making this record it is probable the Government Statistician has not added persons employed in freezing, butter factories, or transport, who are as necessary to the farmer as is. the ploughman or the shepherd. Be that as it may, the figures are arresting, and make one wonder why primary production does not, or cannot, absorb a greater proportion of the population, and so decrease in some degree the ranks of the unemployed. Protection by Customs tariffs, Conciliation and Arbitration Courts, all tend to smooth out the difficulties of bread-winners engaged in secondary occupations; our education system also fosters the idea of secondary occupations or professional careers. Our secondary industries, important as they are, have practically no export trade —having supplied local requirements, they can go no further. Employment or unemployment in these industries depends on the buoyancy or otherwise of primary production.

The trouble at the moment is that the majority of boys leave school w’ith their inclinations tending away from a farming occupation. Furthermore, I think that in the praiseworthy endeavour to bring secondary education within the reach of every boy and girl a mistake is made in not demanding a much higher state of efficiency before they are passed on to the higher-grade school.