LEARN TO SWIM!

Northern Advocate, 29 November 1937, Page 6

LEARN TO SWIM!

Today marks the opening’ of a week devoted to a ‘‘Learn To Swim” campaign. The campaign is Dominion-wide, and ii is hoped that it will result in a public awakening to the toll of human life which the water invariably takes during the holiday season. It will probably surprise many people to learn that, high as is the deathrate from road accidents in the Dominion, more deaths are caused by drowning. A largo proportion of these fatalities are due to the fact that the victims could not swim. Much has been done in recent years to encourage school children to learn to swim, but a great deal more remains to be done. This is a matter regarding which parents of children cany a heavy responsibility. They should lose no opportunity to have their children initiated into an art which, once it is mastered, exercises a great fascination upon its exponents, and which is perhaps the greatest factor in the development of physical fitness. The holiday season is at hand. Soon the beaches, rivers and streams of the Dominion will be crowded with bathers, and it may be expected that some of those who arc unable to swim will lose their lives. “Learn To Swim” should be the all-pervadiug slogan this week. A tragic warning note was sounded in this district yesterday, when a boy, drowned at Port Whangarei, while bathing. Nearer at hand, a. little girl got into difficulties in the pool at Central Park, but fortunately was picked out of the water by a spectator of the aeci-j dent. The incidents to which we! have referred are unfortunately) only too common in New Zealand, j The greater need, therefore, for the slogan “Learn To Swim!”