MOTHERS AND SERVANTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 164, 13 July 1910, Page 4

MOTHERS AND SERVANTS.

The deputation which yesterday urged fchb Premier to do something to provide a larger supply of domestic "help" for this country, had naturally a great many cogent arguments to advam* in its favour. For it must be understood that the crusade on behalf of Overworked Mothers, which has taken a prominent place among social movements in t_e South recently, is cot by any means concerned solely or primarily with matters of domestic convenience. Closely involved in the question of the servant supply are the vitally important problems of.the birth-rate and infant mortality. As one member of the deputation, speaking in the dual capacity of doctor-and mother, told the Premier yesterday, for most women, because of the lack of servants, " every child after two or throe meant imprisonment and penal servitude for the mother." And even under the most favourable conditions the necessity mow thrown upon the mother of doiug her own housework naturally means that the health and training of the children are to a greater or less degree neglected at the very stage of their lives when they need the most solicitous and constant care. Medical opinion throughout the country is in strong sympathy with this movement; and the Premier, by his encouraging response, showed that he realised the importance of the questions raised. We are glad to observe, also, in regard to the far-reaching problems of motherhood and the birthrate that Government intends to do something in the way of carrying out the promise made by the Minister for Public Health to extend to tiie backblocks and the rural districts the advantages now secured to some of the poorest mothers in the towns by the establishment of maternity homes. The suffering endured and the terrible risks run by mothers in many of our isolated* settlements through lack of proper attendance and assistance during the period of maternity, should no longer be ignored. Perhaps some such system of itinerant nurses as has been suggested to deal with the same problem in the Canadian North-West may be established with advantage here. It is for tbe Government to secure the best available information on the question and to devise ways and means. But this much is clear, that between the lack of servants in the towns, and the lack of nurses and doctors in the country districts, the mothers of New Zealand are, under existing conditions, in the majority of cases doomed to a great deal of needless hardship and suffering, and that till these conditions are radically altered, we may expect to trace their baueful influence in the statistical returns that remind us from time to time of our terrible waste of infant life and our declining birthrate.