MAINTENANCE OF CHILDREN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 275, 13 August 1908, Page 7

MAINTENANCE OF CHILDREN.

DISREGARD OF NATURAL RESPONSI-

• BILITIES. (BY TELEQUArn—rIIESS ASSOCIATION.) Christchurclv August 12. At to-day'B meeting of the North Canterbury Charitable Aid Board tho Chairman (Mr. B. P. Manhire) again directed attentionto tho increasing number of children whoso maintenance was mado chargeable to tho Board through their committal to industrial schools. Within the past few weoks there had been six of such children, besides threo others out of seven all taken off the hands of able-bodied parent's, and although lie did not 'say it might not prove better in tho long run, that such children .should be uiider State control, tho State as a whole, and not the local Charitablo Aid Board, should bear the oxpenso. Tho parents in many cases did not approach the Board for assistance to enable them to keop their children, but they often succeeded in getting rid of them and making the Board liable for the cost of maintenance at industrial schools by tho simple process of taking thorn to the police. Quito recently a mother wrote and asked that several young children should bo taken off the hands ot their father, who was in lib way anxious to part with them, and in another case a young woman brought hor illegitimate infant soon after its birth at Wellington down to Christchurch, and managed to got it committed at tho Board's expense for tiie next fifteen years, although sho had promised to take it back to the district whore it was born. When such children wore sent to Nelson, or Cavorsham, or tho North Island by the industrial school authorities, it was not likely that Canterbury would derive any future bonofit from them, and therefore he contended that the cost of their maintenance should not bo charged to Canter-, bury, but to tho' wholo of Now Zealand. 110 was' convinced that the general public had 110 idea of tho facilities afforded to many parents to divest themselves of their natural responsibilities, and ho earnestly hoped that tho Government would realise tho miportanco of the question in its relation to the demoralising cffcct on tho national character when the 'Bill was before Parliament.