RHINE SOLDIERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 March 1930, Page 2

RHINE SOLDIERS

REPORTS ABOUT CHILDREN. BERLIN, January 25. Attempts 1 have been made, especially by German Nationalists, to create illfeeling against the English by spreading through the country reports that 15,000 illegitimate children of fathers who were with the British Forces’ of Occupation, had been left unprovided for in this country. HHie German authorities took the matter up and ascertained that in Cologne, where strict records are kept, there are not as many as a thousand such children left behind by British soldier fathers. All unmarried mothers of these children who are in need are being taken care of, however, by the Geriiian Public Welfare Society, by British relief associations and by the British Consulate. How many children have been abandoned by the departed military forces in other German towns has not yet been ascertained. The German authorities announce further that a considerable proportion of the German women who married men of the British Army have preferred to remain in this country as they feared to start housekeeping in England. Some who accompanied their English husbands home are happy there; those whose husbands are unable to support them have returned to Cologne. The English Relief Association and the British Consul are doing their utmost also for these wives who are now British subjects.