DR. BARNARDO'S BOYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 13983, 12 February 1909, Page 6

DR. BARNARDO'S BOYS.

VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND.

AN IMMIGRATION QUESTION

[BY TELEGRAPH!. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

Donedin, Thursday. The Rev. W. E. Rice, organising secretary of the Australian and New Zealand tour of the Rev. W. J. Mayers and party of boys from Dr. Barnardo's Homes, is at present in Dunedin for the purpose of arranging a series of meetings throughout the Dominion for the purpose of making better known the work of the homes, and also for raising funds and making friends tor the philanthropic work carried on. The little troupe arrived on Monday at the Bluff.

In regard to the work of Dr. Barnardo's Homes, the Rev. Rice, in conversation with a Daily Times reporter, stated that the great philanthropic work founded by the late Dr. Barnardo had been in existent for more than 42 years, and for 40 years of that period the work had been carried on by Dr. Barnardo himself. Dr. Barnardo died nearly three years ago, and he had been succeeded in the direction of the work by Mr. 'William Baker, M.A., LL.B., who devotes his whole time to it, and is highly respected and revered by the whole of the staff, and the work is now being carried on with equal or even greater success. The number of children at present in the homes is greater than at any previous period of their history, no lees than 8000 destitute children now finding shelter under the wings of the institution. Nearly 70,000 children have been saved from lives of shame and want and probably criminality through the agencies of the institutions since their inception. It casts £.240 every day to feed the huge family of children in the homes, and the institutions are entirely dependent on the benevolence of the public, having no subsidies or endowments of any kind. A number of children from the institutions have been assisted to go to the Australian colonies and New Zealand during the past few years, and the Hon. James Page, a member for Queensland of the Federal Parliament, has publicly stated that he was formerly an inmate, of the homes, and that it is to Dr. Barnardo's philanthropic work he owes his start in life.

Some 20,000 children have been sent from the homes to Canada, and the Rev. W. J. Mayers and Rev. W. E. Rice are commissioned to make inquiries as to the possibilities of adopting some systematic method of emigration to the Australian Commonwealth and New Zealand of inmates from the homes.