MALNUTRITION IN BRITAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27028, 12 March 1949, Page 8

MALNUTRITION IN BRITAIN

Sir,—l was astounded to read in youi report of Dr L. S. P. Davidson’s lecture in the Town Hall the statement that there is no malnutrition in Britain to-day. Surely this worthy doctor has been viewing conditions over there through those rose-coioured glasses of statistics, that some months ago, wnen Mr Cnurchill was listening to Mr Strachey’s reports ot these same conditions in Parliament, caused him to burst into a really foreetul, and certainly Churchillian, colourful condemnation of statistics and how they are juggled to suit the people who are presenting them, for he, too, knows the true conditions over there. X have suffered from malnutrition in Britain. That is, if two London specialists and an eminent doctor on the south coast were not wrong in their diagnosis. Not everyone is able to cope with an almost continuous farinaceous diet. What are tne symptoms? Common enough, surely. Lack lustre hair, disinclination to eat at all, horrible tirecmess nevereiiauig, oiten a bioatea and putty appearance, with wax-iike texture of skin. Also anaemic condition that causes many complications. i was among the iucxy ones. We were able to afford extra meals in luxury hotels—such as they are. Lobster at 8s 9d per lb, and mushrooms at Xss a lb, as occasional help-outs, and yet malnutrition toon its toil.

Once back in your own fair land of plenty, these medical men assured me, I would, with sufficient rest ana nourisning iood, recover. I have. For the first time in many years I have known what it is to feel energetic, enthusiastic and not just listlessly, forcing myself from one job to another. For that I am extremely grateful to Our own fair land. What grieves me most is that amid this plenty, I know personally that in Britain to-day there are people dying of malnutrition and complications brought on by it. There is, for instance, the case of my grand London "Clara.” When I was holding two jobs through the blitzes she came daily to help me with my flat. She never missed a day, in spite of several times being partly " blitzed out,” and she was always smiling. She was one of those grand Cockney women of London who would never give in to Hitler or panic with the German bombing, and to whom we literally owe the freedom of our world. Recently I received word that she had died in her early fifties in a well-known London hospital, where the doctors certified that she died of a tired heart and malnutrition. In my five years’ work with the International Wool Secretariat as their New Zealand speaker, I could cite many more such cases. I know those women of Britain intimately, both from my work and from a housewife's viewpoint, and I am sure if I could take Dr Davidson to any of these women’s meetings in the East End of London, bombed-out Hull, Plymouth or Coventry, and he was to deliver his talk, with Its amazing statistics about malnutrition, that, irrespective of their politics, he would, in the midst of these women, soon be reduced to the feelings of an early Christian in the hungry lions’ den.—l am, etc., B. Wakefield.

WAITAKI BOYS’ HIGH SCHOOL

Sir,—The announcement that the rector of Waitaki Boys’ High School, Mr J. T. Burrows, has been appointed brigadier to command the Third Infantry Brigade (Territorials) will surely give parents who have a boy at this school further thought. I would like to ask; (1) How far will this territorial position interfere with Mr Burrows’s work as headmaster of Waitaki and his being in charge of the boarders? I should have thought that this work would be a full-time job, at least during term time. (2) Is Waitaki becoming a kind of secondary school military training ground? A number of boys from the school went to Burnham for military training before the term commenced, then the whole school was in military barracks for a week, and now they are to leave for a further week’s military training at Burnham, on Saturday, March 6. Again I ask, is Waitaki to be a high school in the past sense of the term, or a new kind of military training school?—I am, etc.. Parent. [When the above letter was referred to the Waitaki High School Board, the secretary, Mr D. V. G. Smith, made the following statement:—“ The acceptance by Mr J. T. Burrows, rector of the Waitaki Boys’ High School, of the appointment to the post of brigade commander of the new territorial brigade for the South Island was approved by the Waitaki High School Board after it had been established _ that the appointment would not interfere with Mr Burrows’s duties as rector, and that visits to any territorial camps would take place in his own time during vacations.—Ed.. ODT.I

CARDINAL MINDSZENTY’S TRIAL Sir,—lt is not easy to hold a newspaper discussion with Mr P. S. O'Connor when he accuses me of “vilifying Catholicism.” Nothing I have written, I hope, conveys that impression. I reiterate that my purpose has been to explain why the non-Roman Christians in Hungary disagree with Mindszenty. Nor is it right to assert that I " give a completely wrong reference ” when I quote verbatim a' semi-official British Government publication, which, I notice, sir, you quote at times in your editorials. It is true I have no access here to Hungarian newspaper files, and cannot thus quote Mindszenty’s exact words, but I can quote and to do so is, I hope, not to “ vilify,” a manifesto issued to the nation on January 29, 1949, and signed by leaders of all the non-Roman Churches of Hungary—Reformed. Lutheran, Brethren, Baptists, Methodists and Adventists. • I can only condense: “We have repeatedly emphasised that the Archbishop of Esztergom has not been struggling for religious freedom, since there is no need for such a struggle, but that it is a political struggle he has been' carrying on. . . . The reign of the Hapsburgs is a mournful memory for the Hungarian people and the Protestant Churches alike, as well as the feudal system that went along with it, so that every attempt to restore such a system we strongly oppose.” The two red herrings:—l. Statistics. My figures on denominational attachment are those of the war period when, after December 1. 1941. half of Transylvania with its considerable Reformed population came into Hungary. Mr O’Connor’s are the pre-war. Neither of us is now accurate. After 1944 there were vast movements of population. The results of the census taken on January 1, 1949, are not yet published. 2. Lutheran Bishop Ordass was accused of ” meddling with the currency,” not of being a monarchist. It is forbidden to transmit money from Hungary. He had arranged consequently for another Lutheran Church to pay Hungarian foreign missionaries, and in return set aside moneys in Hungary for use of foreigners travelling there. Such an action is legal and normal in the West. He found that it is not so behind the Curtain.—l am, etc., George A. F. Knight.