ORPHAN CHILDREN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 151, 27 June 1940, Page 18

ORPHAN CHILDREN.

PERMANENT HOMES IN N.Z. •■ ; ■ ■•»•..> ■ ■ .■ ■ CHANCE TO SWELL POPULATION. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day. Not children,' with parent* and relatives in Britain, to. whom they. would return ■:' after the war, • but orphan children who would remain to grow up permanent citizen* of this Dominion, should be evacuated, to New Zealand from England. This,'at least,-i« the opinion of Mr. A. Leigh Hunt, who expressed these views in an address to the Wellington branch of the League of Nations •> •..'•>•■- -- 'r . ■' The original idea seemed to have gone ••tray, he said. It did not seem practicable or reasonable to bring children all this way, juat for a year or so, when ffrffMit had already offered to take as many as required. Why, he asked, had not the Government made a counter - suggeation that orphan children be sent. There were in New Zealand thousands of families willing to adopt these children. But instead of taking to their heart* orphan* who would remain with them permanently, they were going to Mara to love these others, who would then be taken away and sent back to their homes again—perhaps into the slum* of the Old Country, f To him as a business man-the scheme did not seem reasonable. There was no more urgent question than that of populating this country, elee we would have no right to hold it. New Zealand's birthrate was declining. To-day 24 per cent of marriages; were childless, and there':W«re very high percentages with only ,oa<B or two, children. -'•'ln a few years the Nβw Zealand population would become stationary; after that it worild 'Sixty- years hence it would be back to the poputation of 1850, . unless, measures;'' were-■ taken /to remedy the situation, ;;'t -V i--' ',<'o:C\' Here was an opportunity of bringing in child immigrants; the question /'of: adult migration * coukl be - considered after the * war.' ' He had written to the Prime Minister about the scheme to. bring out orphan, children, and he had; received many letters from all' Over the? country supporting it. He suggested that it might-offer scope for the many organisations.anxious to be doing something more -vital: than they ..were"at pretent. ■ .-, ■-■ :■ ; ,■■ ■ ■.... //--