DUTCH FAMILY REUNITED

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27471, 4 October 1954, Page 12

DUTCH FAMILY REUNITED

IMMIGRATION RULE RELAXED SPECIAL APPEAL FOR ELDERLY WOMAN (New Zealand i'ress Association) AUCKLAND, October 3. Mrs Mathilde Smits is one of the happiest women in Rotorua. She is reunited with her two eldest daughters and a son as the result of a special appeal to the Dutch Government, which in turn wrote on her behalf to the Prime Minister of New Zealand (Mr Holland). Mrs Smits’s case was in many respects a test one. She is over 60. and her successful appeal has opened the way for other mothers to emigrate to New Zealand from Holland. “Three of my children came out by 1951,” she said today. “I was promised. like many others, that I could follow if I was sponsored. Later your Government could not take Dutch immigrants if they were older than 45. I appealed, and our Government asked yours to honour its promise. And here I am. “I like New Zealand,” Mrs Smits said. “It is a nice country, but has too few people; Holland is a nice country, but has too many people.” Mrs Smits, a writer; has published a book on handcrafts for sick children. She is now awaiting the first edition of her latest book, which deals with the rehabilitation of criminal prisoners.