CHILD WELFARE IN AUSTRALIA

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3095, 28 May 1917, Page 6

CHILD WELFARE IN AUSTRALIA

POPULATION AND THE FOOD SUPPLY. 1 Sydney, May 26. At.Hie Children's Welfare Conference, resolutions were adopted in favour of establishing day nurseries in populous suburbs; of an Anti-"Shouting" Bill with a view to decreasing the evils due to drunkenness affecting child life; and of forming an association so as to make permanent the decisions of the.conference. Tho Commonwealth Statistician read a paper dealing with tfiu birth-rate. It was impossible, he said, for the world's population to increase for any. appreciable length of time at the. present rate without exhausting.the food supply. If c-. c.ry cultivable acre of the world's surface was cultivated, and the increase of population was/inly 1 per cent, "per annum, ami the present population oiily 1,500,000,000, complete exhaustion of the food supply would bo reached in 150 yeaTS. The Superintendent- of the State Children Department, dealing with illegitimacy,' said that if many babies were to survive the critical stages of infancy, they must bo well paid for by the State, the payment to begin at a defined time before birth.—Press Assn. DESERTER IN'TROUBLE ' » : THREE MONTHS' IMPRISONMENT. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Dunedin, May 26. Allan Aitcheson, described by both tho police and military authorities its an absolute shirker, appeared at the Police Court this morning on a charge of assaulting a constable while in the execution of his duty. It was stated that accused had been a persistent deserter. He was sentenced to three- months' imprisonment with hard labour, and ordered to. be handed over to the military authorities at the end of his sentence.