The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1920. A BUREAU OF CHILD WELFARE

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 254, 21 July 1920, Page 6

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1920. A BUREAU OF CHILD WELFARE

The announcement by the Minister of Education (Mr. Parr) that the Government is about to set up a Bureau or Department of Child Welfare is to be very heartily welcomed. Nothing in our community life calls more urgently for attention and for systematic remedial measures than the terrible waste of infant life and the extent to which standards of health in the rising ■ generation fall short of those that ' easily might be attained. Favour- ' ably as the Dominion compares in these respects with most other countries, and in spite of the admirable work done by. the Plunket Society and other agencies in promoting the health and welfare of mothers and infants, there is immense scope for the activities of a Bureau of Child 1 Welfare, In his address to the | Plunket Society yesterday the ' Minister of Education used telling arguments in favour of his proposal. It is a staggering fact that during the war period nearly 15,000 infants died in this country—a number almost equalling that, of the New Zealand soldiers who died on the field ofbattlo or succumbed to wounds or sickness. Under happier allspices a large proportion of these infants might nave lived to become healthy units in the effec--1 tive population of the Dominion. The initial aim of the Bureau of Child Welfare will be to avert, by education and propaganda, a continuing loss of valuable lives comparable at least in magnitude with that suffered by the manhood of tho Dominion in the Great War. Whatever is accomplished by these meahs in saving life will at the same time make for better standards of health and happiness throughout the population, and, incidentally, for national economy in the best and fullest sense of the term. As Mr. Parr justly observed, effective work in promoting the health of children in their earliest years will largely eliminate the existing necessity for the medical inspection and dental treatment of school children. It is' certainly an anomalous state of affairs thai; the country is spending , something like thre,e_ millions pei annum on the education of children from six to sixteen years of age, and "hardly a' penny picco" in promoting tho health and welfare of children between tho ages of one year and six—that is to say, in the years during which their possibilities o£ future development are liable to be largely determined. New Zealand is decidedly fortunate in having at hand one as well qualified as Dr. Truby King to take charge of tho Bureau of Child Welfare. The Dominion has at times found it necessary to import experts from abroad to take charge of specialised departments, but Dn. Kino is not only better qualified than anyone else in New Zealand to direct work in the interests of child Welfare, but has an international reputation in connection with work of the kind. It is probably well within the mark to say that no living man has done more to foster infant health and welfare, and undoubtedly he is admirably qualified to extend this great and noble work on a national basis. The appointment of Dr. Kino to take charge of tho new bureau, which is presumably assured, will afford an ample guarantee that its activities will be developed with the utmost 'enthusiasm and at the same time on soundly practical lines. At the outset the appointment will_ simply enable Dr, Kino to devote himself unreservedly to the work into which he has thrown himself eagerly at every opportunity, and already with splendid results. He will be enabled, as Mr. Parr observed yesterday, to go through the country preaching the gospel of health to mothers and expectant mothers, and to young people generally. The widest possible dissemination of a sound knowledge of mothercraft and infant development in itself will do a vast amount of good, for there is no doubt that much needlesg loss of life and loss of health are now occasioned by ignorance and neglect. At the same time the work of education will no doubt go hand in hand' with a methodical investigation of existing conditions which will throw valuable light on remedial and helpful measures which are called for in the interests of mothers and infants. It is already clear that there is little enough danger of gping too far in the policy of "preventing disease by education as opposed to curing it with a bottle of medicine." The Minister of Education claimed yesterday that the results of systematic enterprise by .the Bureau of Child Welfare would appear in a great saving of life, a reduction of the huge expenditure upon hospitals, and of the outlay upon the medical inspection and treatment of school children, and not least in increased effectiveness and working power in citizens generally. If anything, these claims are too modest. Welldirected effort on the lines suggested will tend at once to eliminate widespread weaknesses which in many ways impose a burdensome handicap on the community, and to invigorate tho population generally. The work that will be entrusted to the Bureau of Child Welfare has an all-important bearing on the broad problems of national progress and advancement,