OUR BABIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3309, 15 August 1917, Page 52

OUR BABIES.

fir lltokia.. Publisher) under The auspices fit the Royal New Zealand Society lor the Mealth 01 Women and Children. 'lt is b'lht to put up a luuca at Use top o! a precipice than t-o 'LUloialn «u ■mitiulumv lit the bottom." CHILD-W IvLFARE CONFEREXCE AT CAPETOWN. Address by Mb Paul D. Cluveb. (Continued.) Dutv of the Community to the Child. '"Our work to-day is in the first place to educate ourselves as to what we can do towards saving the child from disaster by safeguarding it during infancy, and thus at least giving it a fair start. "Our second duty is to devise means to educate public opinion as to the value of the child. How urgently necessary this is the following extract from the address given by l>r Jnii-.c at the last Municipal Congress will show : -• Government Indifference. ' Is it not .true that the Governments of our country spend hundreds and thousands of pounds yearly in the medical inspection of sheep, in the eradication of Scab, and have spent nearly a million pounds in the eradication of Rinderpest and East Coast Fever? Yes. And it is also true they have not spent a penny on improving the health and physique of our future citizens in the Cape Province.' ". . . However, it is not fair to put all the blame for the neglect of the child on the Union and Provincial Governments, when our legislators are quite apathetic. Nor should we denounce the legislators when the electors take no interest in the question. Popular Ignorance, Prejudice, and .Fatalism Mainlt to Blame. The ordinary elector, again, is not altogether to blame; he has not been educated to understand the importance and needs of child-life. He is usually an easy-going fatalist, who holds such exploded views as: 1. That the sooner his children get measles the better. 2. That wrong feeding and want of cleanliness have nothing to do with the decay of teeth, but that this is due to constitutional defects. Instead of waiting for the Government to take action, we should make every effort to change the views of that section of the public which considers jackals' tails of far greater value to the State than healthy children; which believes in curing our social cancers by palliatives such as Hospitals, Asylums, Prisons, Reformatories, and Poor-relief. It will be necessary to point out how expensive such methods are, and that there would bo an enormous gain to the State if effective steps were taken to remove the cause of the evil, which in most cases can be traced to the neglect of the child. Everyone of us can do something in this direction in our own special spheres; much can also be done by securing the interest of local educational and municipal authorities. The greatest asset a town possesses is its energetic and healthy-minded residents. It follows, then, that the children are its greatest potential source of wealth. The welfare of the child should therefore be of the first importance to the Town Council, and to-day we are here to discuss what should be done for the child by Town Councillors, so .that they can merit the name of Oity Fathers. Mr Benjamin Broadbent (Huddersfield) on Safeguarding the Child. Following on Mr Clover's address came a paper by Mr Broadbent, the devoted pioneer in England of the systematic visiting of homes, with a view to safeguarding and helping mother and child through the agency of Committees of capable women working on broadly humanitarian lines, akin to the Plunket work in New Zealand. Mr Broadbent is deeply impressed with the benefits that accrue ficm getting the whole community helpfully, intelligently, and humanely interested " in the cause of motherhood and infancy." Commandeering All Classes for the •Service of Mother and Child. " Will it bo considered that I am asking too much in thus wishing to commandeer practically the whole of the educated classes for service in the cause of the Babies? 1 could say much in justification of my demand. ... I say this only as a plea: that the whole future of mankind depends upon the right treatment of the infant and the child. . . . It is my conviction that if we are ever to emerge into a larger and more spacious realm of righteousness, freedom, and enlightenment, it will be the little child that will lead the way thereto, and by serving these little ones we shall make possible a future happier for them than the wrecked world around us today." Appreciation of New Zealand. " I close with a rcferenco to what has been done by one section of the British Empire in their care for infancy. We that live in the British Isles have been deeply impressed by the manner in which all the Dominions have come to the helo of the Empire in the awful struggle that has been forced upon us. We have seen the kind of men that are bred and born in these comparatively new settlements, and we admire them all. 1 would not give the palm to any, nor would I be understood to undervalue any because I select for illustration one Dominion out of them all. It merely happens that I know what the New Zealandcrs are like that have come over to help'us, and I know something of the conditions which prevail in New Zealand in regard to babies. . . . " I do not say that either in the production of men or in the care of infancy that New Zealand surpasses South Africa or Australia or Canada,, but I do know, and confess it with shame, that we in the British Isles come out very badly in any comparison with the Dominions as to the statistics of our care of Infant Life;' . "I do not know whether or no the results i in South Africa are better or worse than in Now Zealand. If they are better, I would only say. Look to your honour, lest they surpass you. If they are not so good, I would say i See that you emulate, and. if possible, surpass the best hitherto. Healthy manhood, healthy womanho.od, are the purest and best wealth of the world, and it i 6 only possible to grow them from healthy babyhood and healthy childhood. May thiß wealth grow and increase in South Africa, and may your

Conference do something to promote and lo forward the more abundant production of this true wealth." I should like to add to Mr Broadbcnt's peroration, as eminently in keeping with tho whole spirit of his fervid plea. Emerson's beautiful words: "The child is the perpetual Messiah. sent info the arms of fallen men to win them back to Paradise."