CHILD IMMIGRANTS WANTED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25243, 23 July 1947, Page 10

CHILD IMMIGRANTS WANTED

OPINION OF CONFERENCE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 22. Prospective immigrants to New Zealand were not as easy to find in Europe as was sometimes thought, said Miss D. A. Morris, addressing the population and immigration conference. She met a group of Jugoslavs in a transit camp in the Middle East. Some of them had been in New Zealand, but went back to Jugoslavia during the depression, and had no wish to return to New Zealand. A group of Baltic peoples she had met had taken the attitude that New Zealand was a long way off. and that they preferred to go to Canada. If child immigrants were desired, health would be a major consideration. Many of the children available would be suffering, in an advanced stage, from tuberculosis. < One source of desirable child immigrants would be the illegitimate children of Polish and Norwegian servicemen and Scottish mothers. They were good physical types and healthy. They had been provided for in special homes during the war, but she knew of no post-war provision for them. Mrs J. Mowbray Tripp said she had been told that the children of British servicemen and German women, now growing up in Germany, would be of value to New Zealand as juvenile immigrants. “We can absorb the waifs of war without misgiving,” she said. The conference decided that steps should be taken to urge on the Government the establishment of Fairbridge farm schools in every province and that it should sponsor approved schemes for the introduction of substantial numbers of children from Britain and elsewhere.