SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 115, 16 May 1924, Page 5

SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN.

BIRTH CONTROL OPPONENT. TENSE SCENE AT CONFERENCE. WOMEN HISS MOTHERHOOD. (By Cable.—rress Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, May 15. An astonishing scene was witnessed at the Labour Women's Conference. A little woman, who said site was the mother of 11, denounced the general teaching of birth-control methods. Working women greeted her with a storm of hisses, and women on all sides j cried their dissent. Tiie little woman stood her ground, however, and proclaimed her faith in ringing tones. AVhat can be nicer than children, she : asked. The economic conditions of | mothers should be improved, but Our j Lord himself instructed women in their ! duty when He said, "Suffer little child--11 rcn to come unto Mc." Other speakers on the subject aroused similar outbursts of passionate feeling . among many of the delegates. :! The chairwoman admitted that she . I found a difficulty in keeping order during ■ the debate. The conference finally passed a resolution urging the Minister of Health to appoint a committee to inquire into the care exercised in maternity oases, to investigate the physical and social effects of various metliods of birth-con-trol, and to recommend a scheme to make the best method available to women desiring it. The conference also passed a f resolution that the school age should be raised to 1(> in order to prevent tbe annual flooding of the labour market by 600,000 14-year-old children. Miss Susan Lawrence, Labour M.P. for East Ham, said that the waste of child life was getting on the national conscience. She condemned the placing of children in industry at tbeir most susceptible age, when their characters were being formed and their intellects were developing.— (A. and N.Z. and Reuter.)