FLOCK HOUSE AND FAIRBRIDGE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 257, 27 July 1936, Page 8

FLOCK HOUSE AND FAIRBRIDGE

Dr. R. A. Lochore, whose letter is printed elsewhere on this page, will be far from alone in his disappointment that the Fairbridge farm school announced on Saturday is not being established in New Zealand. The Child Emigration Society, which Kingsley Fairbridge founded in 1909 and which ever since has assiduously attended the fulfilment of his dream, decided two years ago to extend its activities beyond the original farm school in Western Australia, and with that object launched in the United Kingdom a public appeal for funds. King Edward, then Prince of Wales, headed the list, and the goal was set at s£loo,ooo. By June last, when the society held its twentyfifth annual meeting—and incidentally resolved to change its name to Fairbridge Farm Schools, Incorporated—some £71,000 had been raised, and arrangements made for the establishment of a school in British Columbia. At that meeting the chairman said it had been suggested they should establish a school in New Zealand, but further extension would depend upon the amount of money they could raise. Early this year the society’s secretary visited Australia and New Zealand, and the impression left in both countries was that the third Fairbridge farm school would be located either in New Zealand or in one of the eastern States of Australia. New Zealand seemed to have a prior claim because, a similar and equally successful enterprise here, Flock House, having reached a cross-roads, the governing trustees were prepared to negotiate with the Fairbridge trustees with a view to the transfer of property. The merging of Flock House in the Fairbridge scheme would be an almost ideal arrangement. On the one hand it would assure continuity of the Flock House tradition, and on the other it would give the New Zealand Fairbridge farm school a flying start both materially and in public esteem. When it was revealed some months ago that conversations were in progress between the two parties, and also between each of them and the New Zealand Government, there seemed good reason for hoping that the merger would be accomplished, and that immigration to New Zealand was about to be resumed in the most successful field ever cultivated —that of boyhood and girlhood. Now, not only is the third school to go to New South Wales, but also Rhodesia, Kingsley Fairbridge’s own country, is campaigning for the establishment of two “memorial farms.” Does this mean failure of our hopes in New Zealand ?