NOBODY’S CHILD.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 February 1921, Page 5

NOBODY’S CHILD.

THE CARE OF THE STATE. BOARbED OUT ON FARMS. MINISTER PRAISES SYSTEM. ' By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. At New Year there was a case in a Magistrate’s Court in the Auckland district whefe a dairy farmer was fined for beating a lad 'boarded out with him, and during the hearing it was alleged that the lad was out of bed at 4 a.m. to help to milk' cows. The Minister of Education announced at the time that he would investigate the case. Asked to-day if he had come to any decision, the Minister replied that he had gone carefully into this particular ease, and also into the general question of boarding out children on farms. He was satisfied, given careful supervision, that it was better to board out neglected or orphan children than to keep hundreds in institutions which were really a sort of prison, and which carried a certain stigma which remained with a boy for life. He thought we had done right to abolish them iij New Zealand.

The Minister said his departmental officers assured him that the greatest care was taken in selecting homes for these unfortunate cDiildren, and they were most carefully supervised. Moreover, trained nurses attended the homes regularly to care for the children if sick. He had given directions which would still further tighten up the supervision of these homes. As to the Auckland case, the evidence showed that, while it was true the boy had been severely thrashed, he wss nevertheless well fed and clothed by ' the farmer, and neighbors considered that on the whole he was well treated. It was also true that the lad had given some trouble. “I recognise,” said the Minister, "my responsibility as head of this department, and I have taken steps which will prevent for the future, I hope, the possibility of a child being boarded out on an isolated farm and ill-treated. That sort of thing under the new conditions is not likely to occur again.” There were, he added, two thousand children under care in the special schools branch of the department, and nine hundred were boarded out.