A DEFINITE "HOBO" CLASS

From the Queensland Newspaper the Western Star and Roma Advertiser 5 Feb 1936  p. 4.

Tragic Trend of Youth in Australia.

Allegations that unemployed youths all over Australia had bean handed into an organisation of Communists and had become, through their association with criminals, a positive menace to Society was made in Sydney on Wednesday by the Queensland Minister for Labour and Industry Mr. M. P. Hynes at a conference of inter-State Ministers dealing with un employment.

Mr. Hynes declared that there was developing in Australia a definite hobo class of youth. Once a youth got on to the roads he would in six months' time become a positive menace, revelling in breaking the law, unless he was an exceptional character.

"The most tragic aspect of unemployment to-day is the degradation of youths who at the age of 21 or 22 have never had a job," he said. "I have specially studied this problem and have interviewed boys wherever travelled and I have found that there is developing in Australia a definite hobo class of youths. Most of them have been too independent to stay at home and be a drag on their families and so have embarked on adventurous careers, jumping the rattler from State to State.

A MENACE TO SOCIETY.

"Within a few months or a year at most, they have through association with criminals on the track, and become a positive menace to society. At Cairns I met 12 youths who had come from Victoria, jumping the rattler all the way and they were the same as I have met everywhere I have gone.

COMMUNIST LEANINGS.

They gradually become adherents to Communist organisations and they themselves become quite an organsation. They go about with a printed directory explaining where they can get handouts of food and clothing and how they can avoid the regulations, placing restrictions on the indiscriminate issue of relief. There is the tragic problem that we have to deal with, for once a youth gets on the roads he will, in six months, unless he is an exceptional character, be a positive menace, revelling in breaking the laws of the land.