Child Slavery.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 16, 17 April 1902, Page 18

Child Slavery.

A Wang-anui Education Board inspector stated last week that he had recently inspected a school in his district, and, in questioning a number of children who came late, elicited the information that one of them, a girl of twelve years, milked six cows in the morning and pveninsr, and walked four miles to school. A boy of the Fame age milked thhteen, night and morning, and rode thme miles to school ; whilo a child of eight milked ten cows tv^ice a day aid rode three miles to school. These revelations disclose a condition of things far too prevalent in dairying districts. We have frequently seen complimentary references made to the magnitude of the monthly cheques drawn by milk suppliers from dairy factories, and it has sometimes occurred to ua to wonder how much of what is practically child slavery lay behind this prospective affluence. Parents are sometimes very fond of recalling, for the edification of their juniors, the privations and hardships which they underwent in their youth. But the rigorous outline of those hardships is now softened by the mist of distance. It may be regarded as certain that they did not then enjoy the hardships they now declare to have been so beneficial, and they quite forget to account for the less fortunate or robust ones who were injured in the processToil, when it exceeds a disciplinary extent, or is calculated to inflict bodily or mental injury, should not be imposed upon mere children. It may be only for a few years, until the farm becomes established and other branches are added, but in these years irreparable injury may be done to the minds and bodies of the children. To ask a child of eight years to milk ten cows night and morning) to ride three miles to school, and then to expect that child to possess a well-developed body and mind, is to ask an impossibility, and a seriouß responsibility rests on the parent who makes such demands. An honorable and a comfortable home is a legitimate object of ambition, but to achieve this at the expense of the arduous labor of children is to rob the gain cf all its blessings.