FARM CHILD SLAVES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 613, 15 March 1929, Page 16

FARM CHILD SLAVES

TOO TIRED TO LEARN AT SCHOOL NO PICNIC FOR THEM (Special to THE SUN) P AERO A, Thursday. While their schoolmates, many of whom had never seen the sea, were enjoying the delights of the school picnic at the seaside, two small brothers had to stay at home because their parents would not release them from their daily task of milking cows at 4.15 a.m. and in the evening. This miniature tragedy was referred to at the meeting of the Paeroa District High School Committee by the chairman, Mr. J. C. IT. McDonald. "This is a case of absolute child slavery,” he declared, and added that though he had heard of such cases he had never been unfortunate enough to come into actual contact ‘ with one. When the children came to school after their early work on the farm they were too tired to pay proper attention to their lessons. It would not have cost the boys’ parents anything, he said, to send the boys to the outing to the Thames coast, as the public, on bearing the extraordinary fact that a number of the children had never seen the sea. had subscribed most liberally to the picnic funds. The committee strongly endorsed a resolution calling for immediate action on the part of the child welfare officer.