BRITISH ORPHANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 September 1940, Page 4

BRITISH ORPHANS

ADOPTION IN NEW ZEALAND NOT WISHED BY BRITISH GOVERNMENT. STATEMENT BY MR PARRY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Included in a number of the several thousand voluntary offers received by the Government to provide homes for the unspecified British children to be evacuated to New Zealand is an inquiry as to whether some of the children, being probably orphans, could be adopted by foster-parents in the Dominion. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Parry, stated last night that while 4 there seemed to be much in favour of adoption in the case of orphans, it was not the wish of the British Government that any of the children coming to New Zealand under the scheme should remain in the Dominion permanently, but rather that they should return to England on the termination of the war. The names of the persons who had indicated a desire to adopt the children given to their care had been specially listed, said Mr Parry. The Go- ’ vernment at present could not give an assurance that any of the children would be available for adoption. If, however, it was subsequently possible to conclude an arrangement for adoption, then in the event of the child being suitable and the foster-parents themselves being satisfactory in all respects, possibly adoption might be allowed, subject to the safeguards which were already provided in the case of adoption of any of our orphan children and any additional safeguards which it might be deemed necessary to impose with regard to British children. Comment was made by the Minister on the deep feeling displayed by New Zealand mothers wishing to adopt children who had been bereft of their parents through the war. A touching paragraph of a letter received from a northern woman who wished to adopt a child was as follows: “Out here in peaceful New Zealand we cannot imagine the great sorrow a cruel monster has brought to so many homes where there are little ones. The least we can do is to take some of the little girls and boys who are fatherless and motherless and bring them up as our own, happy and strong.”