Children's War

If the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, the Battle of Britain might have to be won on the ploughed fields of an island traditionally never more than a hop, skip & amp; a jump ahead of starvation. Into the fields last week Britain sent all her schoolchildren, rich & poor alike. The farming problem was acute.

With savage shipping losses to counteract, every ounce of grain, every Brussels sprout (see col. 1) was needed to keep the nation alive. Because farm hands had been conscripted into service or lured away by higher wages in war industries, the spring labor problem was put on the narrow shoulders of Britain's moppets. They responded as heroically as they had when they were blitz messengers; as industriously as when they were waste salvagers, as enthusiastically as when they were training themselves to become future airmen and nurses.

Nationwide regulations now provide a maximum ten-day farmwork "holiday" for children 12 to 14, with special provisions for subsequent half-school, half-work days. Pay for farm-handing during this so-called holiday is set at 4d (8-c-) to 8d an hour for boys, slightly less for girls. Slightly higher scales prevail for older boys already working on the land as Young Farmers and in summer hostels.

Junior Warriors. Meanwhile Government Youth Training Centers, greatly enlarged since pre-war days, teach British children leaving school at 14 the mastery of machine tools, the use of electric welding. The Church Lads Brigades learn how to fight fires and repair bomb damage. Others, given "the privilege of defending their homeland against invasion," march and train with oldsters in the Home Guard. More than a million youngsters are on call for national service. Thousands of others learn navigation, signaling and aircraft identification in eager preparation for enlistment at 18 in the services. Most popular service-training organization is the Air Training Cadets, with 1,444 squadrons and 177,310 members.

The increasing load on childhood is not all to the good. Industry has absorbed more thousands than ever before and, with evacuees still straggling back to bombed areas, child labor gives authorities many a worry. Juvenile delinquency continues to rise; petty larceny is a main complaint. Boys twelve years old have even been caught stealing soap. Plymouth gasped recently when it learned of a 14-year-old boy who stole money even though earning -L-9 a week, of another who drank nine pints of beer each night.

But the future rulers of Britain are bearing their full share of the war effort. Having, by Government policy, a complete freedom of choice in their work, they are learning duty and responsibility.

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