MANY ELDERLY PEOPLE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22405, 12 August 1947, Page 6

MANY ELDERLY PEOPLE

PASSAGES TO DOMINION 60% OF THOSE ON AKAROA (P.A.) AUCKLAND. Aug. 11. Surprise at the number of elderly i British people who were obtaining pasjsages to seltie in New Zealand was ex- | pressed by younger passengers and I officers in the liner Akaroa, which has j arrived from Southampton, j Sixty per cent of the 199 passengers i were more than 50 years of age, it was stated. Many of the older passengers had come here to join children or other i relatives. Some were invalids, j Young people who wished to make a j new life in the Dominion said that i they expected their fellow-passengers Ito be equally young. They knew many ! skilled workers who would be an asset to the Dominion and who were anxiously awaiting passages, j A young Wellington manufacturer ; said that after vainly trying to get a i passage for a 17-year-old youth whom ihe wanted to make an apprentice he I was disagreeably surprised to see so many berths taken by people who were ! beyond the age for work, i A long wait for a passage was experienced by a family e rom Luton, Bedfordshire. Interviewed on arrival they I said that they had to wait 18 months, 'in which time they sold three homes, each time in the belief that a passage was ready for them. They came here for “a better break in life for the I children.”