SAFETY OF CHILDREN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 156, 1 June 1940, Page 7

SAFETY OF CHILDREN.

FURTHER EVACUATION. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 30. Children to the number of 39,000 will be removed from south-east coast and Medway towns to South Wales and the Midlands on Sunday. At the same time 8000 school children evacuated from London and Medway towns in September to areas in the 10mile coastal belt between Sheringham and Folkestone will be transferred to South Wales and the Midlands. Appealing to parents in all other evacuation areas to nelp the Government by registering school children during the next few day 6, the Minister of Health (Mr M. MacDonald) said in a broadcast speech: “Our soldiers in Belgium and Northern France, side by side with their French comrades, are at this moment fighting an action as valiant and historic as any in our military annals. We know that they are doing everything in their power to harry, delay, and weaken the enemy so that we may gather our strength for his ultimate defeat. Are we sure that we as civilians are doing everything we can toward the same purpose ? “In this war co-operation by every citizen in the country in many different ways is an essential part of the national war effort. War is going to be brought rignt home to this island. The same indiscriminate, savage air attacks on our industrial cities and towns as have been experienced by our Allies on the Continent must be expected. RUTHLESS FOE. “The enemy certainly did not desist from that in our case; rather he will endeavour to strike us most hard and most 1 mortally, for here in this island is one of the decisive: and indomitable centres of resistance to his will; So we must be prepared to receive his onslaught, and one important feature of our plan to resist and withstand this shock with as little loss as may be is the removal at the right moment of as many children as possible from the evacuation areas. ‘lt has been the declared policy of the Government that no further organised evacuation should take place till l>ombing has actually started. Well, that time may be very near; and the Government, with the full facts and prospects of the situation before them, feel that the risk of that early bombing is so real that it is right to make plans for the evacuation as complete as possible now. It may not be necessary to start' evacuation in 1 all the evacuation areas on the same day, but in the light of the latest position the Government has decided that it may very possibly be necessary to commence the movement in 60ine places in the course of next week ’’ Mr MacDonald appealed to parents to recognise that the transfer of the children from closely populated centres to other areas would mean greater safety for their lives and limbs.