FRENCH CHILDREN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1940, Page 5

FRENCH CHILDREN

MENACE OF MALNUTRITION' REPORT TO VICHY GOVERNMENT. MINISTER ON VITAL NEED OF PARSIMONY. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON, October 13. The correspondent of “The Times” on the French frontier says that Professors Macheboeuf and Chavalier, scientific advisers to the Vichy Ministry of Food, warned Marshal Petain that unless vitamin A in the form of cod liver or halibut oil is brought from America before January, the lives of three-quarters of all the children in France will be endangered from malnutrition, or the susceptibility to infectious diseases enhanced. They added that the children’s resistance will be at the lowest point next March. The Minister of Agriculture, M. Cazior, in a broadcast said, “The principal cause of our terrible suffering is the blockade, depriving us of 60 per cent of our fats which come from the olive groves of North Africa. France is in a difficult food position. The supplies must be used with parsimony and, if necessary, with severity.” LIFTING OF BLOCKADE OPPOSED BY AMERICAN LABOUR. LONDON, October 13. Mr William Green, president of the American Federation of Labour, in a telegram to the head of the American relief organisation. Mr Herbert Hoover, stated that it is opposed to the lifting of the British blockade to feed starving people in Europe. “It is ask- 1 ing too much of Britain in her hour of deep distress in her struggle with totalitarian nations to lift the blockade, the telegram stated. “I am opposed J to extending aid to Hitler and Musso- 1 lini and to creating a situation which < might enable them to secure food for 1 their armies.” ’