SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1908. LADY PLUNKET'S APPEAL. "The Cry of the Little Children."

Free Lance, Volume VIII, Issue 403, 21 March 1908, Page 6

SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1908. LADY PLUNKET'S APPEAL. "The Cry of the Little Children."

LADY PLUNKET'S notable address at the Town Hall on Momday last on the subject of infant life preservation has aroused a very widespread interest. The Infant Life. Preservation Act of the last session of Parliament was a very necessary step in the direction of bringing about a better state of affairs in the safeguarding of infant life in the Bominion. But it was felt at the time, and generally admitted, that the greater portion of infant life in the Dominion would not be affected. Something more was necesary in this connection which should individualise the necessary work, and bring its benefic pnt influences into every home. • * • Her Excellency, Lady Plunket, has placed herself at the head of a movement which, besides being philanthropic, is al s*)5 *) in the best sense patriotic. New Zealand needs population. Yet, at the same time it is losing a large part of the people born within its own shores by a leakage in infant life that is preventable, or at all events can be greatly diminished by the adoption of the proper methods. Lady Plunket is in possession of a scheme for the checking of this deplorable national waste. With the warm humanitarian feeling that has distinguished her ever since she came to New Zealand, Her Excellency has taken up the project heart an-d soul, and Wellington is feeling the influence of her energy. * * • It is a painful fact that our modes of living in these days have led to the rearing of children, for the most part, upon an artificial plan. Too many mothers are unable, either from physical, social, or other causes, to follow Nature's plans in tlie matter of feeding their offspring. They are obliged, for want of knowledge as to any better system, to resort either to the product of the common dairy or to the numerous patent foods which flood the market. • • • Neither of these substitutes is equal to the purpose. For that matter, nothing at all can be found to equal the provision of Mother Nature. Medical research, however, has discovered a means of bringing cow's milk as near in its constituents to human milk as it is reasonable to hope for. The provision of this humanised milk is being urged by medical men as the means of checking the sacrifice of joung lives that the country can ill spare. • • • It is this system of the supply of humanised milk, and instruction in the method of producing it, that Lady Plimket desi,res to further. In order to establish the system on a permanent basis, she proposes the foundation of Societies for the Preservation of Infant Life throughout the Dominion. Foremost amongst the objects of such societies will be the encouragement of the bringing up of children by Nature's method. This cannot always be practicable, but an alternative plan provides for the issue of humanised milk to the public, and the employment of nurses who shall be ready at any time to give advice and 1 instruction, to mothers, in their homes or elsewhere. There is also to be provision for the

dissemination of accurate information concerning +he health of women and children through the distribution of pamphlets and the delivering of lectures. # * • Lady Plnnket's desire is to enlist the practical sympathy and co-operation of the earnest women of the Dominion for the of such information as will remove the ignorance at present prevailing in this important department of the life of the community. It ls stated that over 600 children die annually in the Dominion from preventable causes. This is the tide or mortality which Her Excellency wishes to stem. • • • The movement is both humanitarian and patriotic, .and there should be a strong rallying throughout New Zealand of those willing and anxious to forward the movement. Her Excellency's able address was enforced by the statistics and utterances of the Hon. Dr. Collins, and Drs. PuTdy and Mason, whose professional pxperience doubtless made them keen to attest the burning need of Lady Plunket's appeal. It now remains for the public of the Domimoin to "show wiling" in advancing the humane work by piling up a substantial sum for the promised Government subsidy.