School Milk

Press, Volume C, Issue 29506, 6 May 1961, Page 3

School Milk

Sir, —While I respect the feelings of “Compassion” towards the starving babies in Asia. I cannot altogether agree with her. There is no reason why our children should be deprived of their milk at school simply because it is no longer paid for by the Government. Milk should be available to be drunk at school whether it is free or whether the children are asked to contribute to its cost. I would rather see mothers set themselves a target of, say, ss. week as a contribution to famine relief, and save this 5s by depriving their children of sweets, cakes, and biscuits. This money might usefully be spent on educating people of Asia on birth control. For centuries Asians have looked on begging as a legitimate way of earning a living. Let us turn a deaf ear to the cry, "Baksheesh.” and educate these people to limit their population.— Yours, etc., M. S. STARKY. Amberley, May 3, 1961.

Sir, —What a splendid effort it would be to help C.0.R.5.0. by giving, in dried milk or the equivalent in money, what it costs to supply the schools with milk. Today free milk is quite unnecessary. The majority of our children are already over-fed, and for those who have insufficient there is a special benefit. During the depression this gesture was a wonderful help, but today it is absolute nonsense.— Yours, etc., MOTHER OF SIX. May 4, 1961.

Sir, —May I second "Compassion’s” motion that children’s free school milk be diverted, dried, to thein starving counterparts in, India, Asia, Latin America, or any of the starving twothirds of the world? If we prosperous New Zealanders could imagine, let alone feel, the pangs of slow starvation, collections such as the college students took up with such kindly zeal—in fact practically all collections at the present time—would be for feeding and housing refugees. 15 million of whom Mr D. M. Deane, of the Y.M.C.A., Geneva, repeats the oft-told warning, have no roof at all —let alone a Cholmondeley Home! Doing this would better serve our own well-fed, well-cared-for 15s-a-week-pocket-money children by stemming the insidious advance of communism towards world domination from the horrors of which no’ Cholmondeley Home, however well appointed, would save them.—Yours, etc., HELP THEM SAVE US. May 4. 1961.