MALFORMED CHILDREN

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1057, 22 August 1930, Page 16

MALFORMED CHILDREN

MINISTER TO INQUIRE INTO QUESTION WORK ON MILK ROUNDS THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter WELLINGTON, Thursday. A promise that his department would look carefully into the question of the malformation of children because of their having to work on milk rounds before going to school was given by the Minister of Health, the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, in the House of Representaives today. Mr. W. E. Barnard (Labour — Napier), in an urgent question, asked the Minister if he had noticed a report in the Wellington Press relating to children being employed from three and four o’clock in the morning on milk runs, and having to climb big flights of steps, both in Wellington and Napier. At a meeting of the Wellington Education Board it was stated that the teachers could not do anything with the children at school, and the physical instructors reported that they were becoming malformed, round-shouldered and flat-chested through carrying the milk-cans. Would the Minister have these charges inquired into? The Minister said he considered that the position was quite serious and, as the annual report of the DirectorGeneral of Health in 1927-28 showed, the question was engaging the attention of his department. He would take still more active steps to see that such an unhappy state of affairs as reported was ended. Mr. Barnard: Does that mean that the Minister will take some action in the matter? Mr. Stallworthy: Yes.