STAMINA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 11 January 1944, Page 2

STAMINA

ON THE DECLINE DANGER OF PAMPERING MAN AND BEAST \ Agricultural and pastoral shows as at present conducted are not a worthy means of improving livestock and increasing production, because stud breeders on the cream of the country are rapidly breeding stock that look well provided they are fed all the time and have every bite put into their aristocratic mouths for them, but lack staipina and guts when this pampering process is discontinued. This point is made in an article “Are Shows Worth While?” which appears in the latest gazette of the Royal Agricultural Society of New Zealand. While there may not be general agreement with all the statements in the article, it is certainly thought-provoking. The writer says that those who contend that shows as at present conducted are not worth while “point to our modern practice of breeding horses only for speed, mutton and beef breeds only for surface fat, wool breeds for wool that remains superfine only while the grower of it is covered, dairy breeds that produce great quantities of butterfat provided they are milked regularly after every meal and meals are very regular. They even go so far as to say that we are breeding a third-class race of men and women—a race whose war record is proving this abundantly with our huge physical rejects for service and our extremely high sick rate in spite of modern medical science. “These critics point to the old theory of survival of the fittest as laid down by mother Nature—the battle to the strong, the race to the swift. All our modern tendencies, politically, sociologically and materially, fight against allowing man or beast to suffer in any way from the natural pressure of nature’s laws. PAMPERING DESTROYS RESISTANCE “Animals, human and otherwise, if bred naturally allow some unexplained psychological and organical process to develop within them that automatically adjusts the body to changes of temperature and food conditions and maintaining a healthy body at all times. Pampering destroys this process and weakens all powers of resistance. Pampering of stock, social security and free medicines lead to unhealthy stock and weak humans. But we are ultra-mod-erns, so must move with the times until we are so over-pampered and oversecured socially that we and our stock as distinct races eventually fade out and the more rugged races of livestock and humans move in to takev. our places.” Dealing with the question of “Who is to prevent all this?” the writer says that he does not look with any great hope to the medical and veterinary professions, to the Government, to the breed societies or even to the Royal Society. He says, however that “much could be done by bringing the right men together: men who had the hard practical experience of living with and handling numbers of stock; men who are cunning tillers of the soil; men who worked in with the seasons and with Nature and not against her: men who can just occasionally remove the clay from their feet, forget they are members of particular breed societies and come from some very particular district and for once be New Zealanders.”