"WHAT TO DO WITH OUR BOYS."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9136, 8 July 1908, Page 4

"WHAT TO DO WITH OUR BOYS."

"What to do with our boy?, "is a question that agitates the mind of the farmer as well as f .he city dweller, and Mr J. R. Rutherford, a speaker at the Auckland Agricultural and Pastoral Association meeting on Friday last, had a strong point to make. He said that if a lad was a failure at any city profession, lie was packed off to a farm. The conditions of farm life sometimes gave those boys the drilling they required, at:d a lad who was dull at first might be developed, with careful training, into a goal and uteful man. But the process was a long awl a slow one, and sometimes the boys were not worth their food for many months. Now, according to the conditions sought to be imposed on farmers by the Conciliation Board in the Canterbury farm labourers' dispute, a farmer would require to pay thoss hoys 15s each a week at starting, and give them their apprentice training and board and lodging for nothing. Farmers simply woul Jn't do it, and in tjwn the number of apprentices in any trade was strictly limited, so that the boys would be hard pressed to find work of any description.