A RECORD WE DON'T HOLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 122, 26 May 1939, Page 8

A RECORD WE DON'T HOLD.

"New Zealand has the lowest rate of infant -mortality in the world." So says the "Official Year Book," and with good reason most people believe it to be true. Frequently, at public gatherings, reference is made to this " record," to New Zealand's " lending the world," and so forth. But it isn't a fact, and no good purpose is served by persisting in the pretence that it is. In one section of New Zealand's population the infant mortality rate is not the lowest in the world,, but among the highest. The European infant mortality rate, which is in truth the lowest, was in the ten years 1928-37 33 per 1000; but the Maori rate in the same period was 104. As the statistician explains, " Deaths of Maoris are not included in the statistics," principally because " a considerably lower standard of accuracy and completeness of data exists in the case of Maori registrations than in the general death records." This reason must now be less good than it used to be, and the fact that it is repeated year after year indicates that the Government health service and the organisations concerned with infant welfare have not reached the point of practical recognition of the fact that a Maori infant is potentially as valuable as a European infant. Perhaps the best—as it would certainly be the candid —course would be for the statistician to record the infant mortality rate for the whole population, so that the Government and the infant welfare organisations might be stimulated to work to reduce it to a figure of which we could all be unreservedly proud.