BOYS' WAGES
should like to endorse what you say under "News of the Week" in The Spectator of November 28th about boys' wages.
The high wages that boys on leaving school can get at the aero- drome building here are the talk of the village. I am told of a boy of 16 getting £5 for taking round teas. Youths earning a decent wage and being taught a trade at the local garage leave to get far more pay for unskilled work. As for men's wages on the aero- drome they are fantastic, and the prevalent idea in the village is that as contractors are paid 5 per cent, on costs they don't mind what wages they splash about.
As I have mentioned an aerodrome, perhaps my name and address
had better be left out.—Yours faithfully, SUBSCRIBER.
SIR,—As one who was, throughout the last war and until recently, in close contact with adolescents working in a munition area, may I heartily endorse your contention that "the whole question of wage- payments by firms engaged on Government contracts calls for searching inquiry and action."
In a Midland Juvenile Court recently, a defendant, though barely sixteen years of age and mentally deficient to such a degree that the lowness of his I.Q. had prevented his admission into a local Special School, said that he was " earning " ,C2 15s. each week.
As this occurred a few weeks ago, doubtless he has received a rise
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