NEWS FOR WOMEN

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25226, 3 July 1947, Page 2

NEWS FOR WOMEN

CHILD MIGRANTS

GERMAN CHILDREN FAVOURED FOR AUSTRALIA

Sydney’s women’s organisations favour German children as suitable migrants for Australia. Delegates from associations affiliated with the National Council of Women said this at a meeting of the council last week. They suggested that the children should be between two and seven years of age. The council will write to the Federal Government asking that child migrants be brought to Australia as soon as possible. Delegates were against a suggestion That German girls between the ages of 15 and 18 should be brought to Australia. Some delegates said that they would prefer to see children of nonenemy origin, such as Poles or Czechs. Mrs Margaret Watts, who left Australia last year to carry out relief work in Europe, has put before the Australian Minister in London, Mr J. A. Beasley, a plan for child migrants. Mrs Caroline Kelly said Australians should stop taking a personal attitude towards migration, and quoted one woman as having said that she "would be glad to see European girls brought here as she had not had a maid for five years. ‘‘We must remember that, as soon as migrants step ashore we want them to become Australians, and we should think of them as Australians, not foreigners,”’she added.

The Rev. W. D. O’Reilly, a member of the Council of Social Services Committee, said: “We must be prepared to allow migrants to keep their own cultural patterns and not to push them around if we want them to come to Australia.”

He added that the problem of transport was small compared with the "emotional resistance” shown by many Australians against people of fpreign origin.