Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 1940. HOMES FOR BRITISH CHILDREN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 June 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, J UNE 26, 1940. HOMES FOR BRITISH CHILDREN.

ALTHOUGH some details have yet to be worked out, no serious difficulty seems likely to arise in giving effect to the scheme for the transfer of British children to homes m the Dominions for the duration of the war. As may be seen from cabled and other statements, the plans now being shaped by the Government of the United Kingdom and those of the Dominions relate purely Io the provision of temporary homes for children who will return to Britain after the war. The numbers meantime in question are comparatively modest. Gut of a total of 20,000 British children to be sent overseas, it is proposed to provide for 2,500 coming to New Zealand. As the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr Parry) has observed, however, it will probably be possible to extend that number very considerably in light of experience.

The proposals as they stand have every claim to the sympathetic support they are being accorded readily in New Zealand. Already, Mr Parry states, letters are being received daily from people offering to take one, two, or three of the British children and it is noteworthy and very satisfactory that the New Zealand Government has declined an offer by the British Government to pay a weekly contribution towards the maintenance of the young folk “as it was felt that New Zealanders ■would wish to give the children homes free of cost.” This m itself should do a good deal to smooth away difficulties. One of yesterday’s cablegrams mentioned that the British Government was proposing to ask parents to contribute at varying rates to the maintenance of their children sent overseas, but m the conditions of hospitality New Zealand is offering this will not be necessary.

An effective organisation for the reception and establishment of the children in their temporary homes should be built up under the plans the Minister of Internal Affairs has outlined—plans in accordance with which the Dominion will be divided into twenty-six zones, in each of which one local body will be selected as the responsible zone authority. Tt is, of course, essential that the suitability of homes offered should be determined by adequate investigation and that every care should be taken \o safeguard the physical and moral welfare of the children, to ensure that they have free access to educational and other advantages and that they are well cared for in every way. One very important consideration is that they should be assured of congenial companionship of young folks of something like their own ages.

A clear distinction is to be drawn between this scheme to give British children temporary homes in the Dominions for the duration of the war and proposals to introduce British orphans as permanent settlers. Under the war evacuation scheme, parents are given a guarantee that their children will be returned to them as soon as possible after the war is over. There is no reason, however, why schemes for the introduction and adoption of British orphans should not be developed side by side with the war evacuation plans, so long as they are distinguished clearly one from another. Plans to bring out British orphans for adoption, so that they may grow up as New Zealanders, are being developed in the Wairarapa and in some other parts of the Dominion, and in the right conditions of careful and methodical organisation they should be capable of conferring considerable benefits on all concerned. At present, thoughts are concentrated primarily, as they should be, on the prosecution of the war to victory. The immediate and most essential call upon energy and upon resources is in making every contribution that is possible to an effective war effort. Yet it is right that those who are able to do so should give some thought also to the conditions that will arise when the war is over. If decisive victory is to be won and maintained we must be prepared to grapple as a people with the moral, social and economic problems that will demand abolition insistently when hostilities come to an end. In New Zealand an effective handling of these problems will entail bold national planning and expansion. If we are to make good • ■;-.■• <.f <mr opportunities in the after-war period we must find means of adding to our population by immigration as well as by natural increase. The introduction and adoption of British orphans is mil} one of a number of methods of immigration I hat may become practicable, but it is a method that has altogether exceptional claims to consideration.