MALNUTRITION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 245, 13 September 1935, Page 8

MALNUTRITION.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Mr Ernest Petty refers to the League’s “smug complacency” and takes up half a column to prove it. Nothing he has said, however, touches our point which is this: The Labour candidates are saying that the Direc-tor-General of Health in liis report says that 71 per cent, of 51,000 children are suffering from insufficient food. This is an. untruth for the report said no such thing. It mentioned of per cent. To spread an untruth about the health of our children for political purposes is far more callous than to correct that untruth. Mr Petty thinks the Director’s report would not be believed by many mothers; that again does not affect the position. The Director’s report may bo totally wrong (a very unlikely supposition), but that would not justify the Labour candidates deliberately misquoting it for political purposes. The point under discussion was not whether there was underfeeding,, or what is the meaning of malnutrition, but what the report actually said. How can the exposure of an untruth be classed “smug complacency.”—AA'e ar€ 43 tc ’ N.Z. AVELFARE LEAGUE. AA’ellington, September 12, 1935;