“WAIFS OF EMPIRE.”

Waipa Post, Volume XXI, Issue 1279, 10 August 1922, Page 3

“WAIFS OF EMPIRE.”

TURNING THEM TO 'GOOD ACCOUNT.

Waifs of Empire to people and make productive iits waste lands is the settlement' scheme under consideration in Tasmania, said Mr Edward Julius, district forester for Northwest Tasmania, in speaking at Auckland of his State’s forestry programme. The proposal to settle boys from. Dr Barnardo’s Homes on waste lands and employ them in a tree-planting scheme, which it was hoped would make productive some 7,000,000 acres. The Scheme has the endorsement of Mr Percy Roberts, already well-known in the settlement of Barnardo boys in Canada, who had visited Tasmania in this connection after seeing to their destination the first, contingent of Barnardo boys to arrive in Australia. The detail of the S' heme its that each settlement of boys should be allotted a block of 20,000 acres of waste lands, in the centre 1 of which should be erected <a school and a church. The boys would ibe housed in hostels, each one to be on a subsidiry block of 5000 acres, and thus there would be four hostels to each settlement, slelf-contained for training purposes. The 'boys’ labour would be productive, and their education would take' its due place in the programme. The Tasmanian Government had approved of the scheme, but could give it only limited financial support. The Empire Forestry League was, however, actively sympathetic, and was lending its influence in London to secure subsidies from the Imperial Government under the Empire Settlement Scheme, and there was strong hope that its representations, would bear fruit.