NATIONAL MALNUTRITION

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22768, 21 July 1939, Page 15

NATIONAL MALNUTRITION

TO THE EDITOR or THE PRESS. Sir,-—Thanks for your leading article on national malnutrition. It is timely ana much' to the point, particularly * you sfate, “The Government still stubbornly puts the financing of treatmentand cure before thcnurture of a healthy people.”- It seems incredible that any government should be so pigheaded and stupid that it insists on . P a '- C hing up physiological errors rather than preventing those errors occurring. The quotation above contams a fundamental truth which alone is sufficient to wreck the health of the Social Security Act. Embodied in the same act, there are other fundamental errors, even more serious, any one of which, if persisted in, will wreck the scheme. Sir John Orr’s report states that more than 20,000,000 people in England are existing (not living) on an income of 10s a week or less. He goes on to state that £200,000,000 a year more must be spent on food alone if the diet of these 'unfortunate people is to be made - adequate for bare health.. Hie report also. makes it clear that the main reason for this alarming figure of ill-health is that these people have not the money to buy the essential foodstuffs to ensure a minimum of good health. Almost the same alarming degree of malnutrition and ill-health is present in New Zealand. If any doubt this statement, I would ask them to remember that: (1) Ninety-eight per cent, of our school children have decayed teeth (and such are probably the surest register of health): (2) the hospitals are Increasing in number and size, at an astounding rate; and (3) the incidence of cancer and various other “civilisation” diseases is famous (or infamous) throughout the. world. It is evidence of ignorance and utterly absurd to wail about national ill-health while the community’s total money is hopelessly unequal to purchase the quantity of health foods necessary to ensure even a minimum of good health. In this connexion, let me make a suggestion: There are 1,000,000 carcases of mutton in our cool stores which no people on earth have the money to buy. Send a cable to the British Government, making it a “gift” of this mutton, on condition that it takes delivery, f.ab.. New Zealand ports, and that it is distributed as a gift to the destitute of Great Britain, the producers -to be paid by a debt-free draft on the Reserve Bank. The bulk of this money would flow to the stock agents, reducing the farmers’ indebtedness to them,' and would immediately be cancelled out by the trading banks, thereby reducing the indebtedness of the stock firms to ;the banks. The balance would,find its way to the retailers and would deplete, to a small extent, the Piles of unsold goods in ouf shops. The ’ shopkeeper pays the money into the bank, where, in turn, it is cancelled by reducing his overdraft. Result: improved health and happiness for millions of people, benefit to New Zealand producers, an addition to the true purchasing power of our own people, and no inflation. In short, benefit to all. I commend the idea to yourself and also -to the so-called Labour Government that. at this stage, it may make a magnificent gesture of goodwill towards, the people of Great Britain.— Yours, etc., -■ CHAS. E. ST. JOHN. July 18. 1939. /