HEALTH CAMPS

Southland Times, Issue 23227, 16 June 1937, Page 12

HEALTH CAMPS

To The Editor Sir,—As one who did not subscribe to the fund for children’s health camps, for no other reason than disapproval of the object, I would be glad to be allowed to express an attitude towards the proposal that may possibly be shared by other readers of your journal. It is a rather painful reflection that permanent health camps for children should have ever been deemed necessary, for, regarding them in the nature of a remedy, one must presume the existence of a disease. What then, is the disease? If it is a fact that • a large number of children in New Zealand are weaklings, where lies the cause? It surely cannot be that these children are reared in an unhealthy domicile, for the Dominion can rightly be regarded as one vast health camp and an eminently suitable place for the bringing up of a family. The responsibility for these ailing children, must then, rest with their parents, who are either not doing their job properly or are “victims of themselves” in that they lack the constitutional soundness necessary for the begetting of healthy offspring. We cannot, of course, blame the children for not choosing their parents wisely, but it can be said with truth that could they but do so we should find the solution to this and many other of our social problems. Your correspondent “Health First and Last,” writing on this subject in today’s issue, makes a strong point when he states that a holiday at a health camp will only give a temporary benefit to a weakling child if it subsequently returns to unhealthy home conditions; and he rightly stresses the importance of good milk and a wellbalanced diet for juveniles. But diet itself provides no'panacea where the child’s constitution will not admit of the proper assimilation of food. Our pioneers lived and reared their families under far worse conditions than exist today. Pampering and coddling found no place in the children’s regimen. There are living in Invercargill at present many old identities who take a just pride in their children, who have grown to healthy manhood and womanhood without health camps, free milk and other charitable aids to fitness.

The proposal to establish permanent health camps under State control conforms to the general trend of presentday legislation by tending to destroy the self-reliant spirit that is claimed to be a characteristic of our people. It will appeal particularly to that section of the population who, the victims largely of their own< imprudences, regard the State as a foster-mother to whom they can look for succour in ever-increasing measure. As your correspondent states, the camps will be no advertisement for New Zealand, for if the expenditure of the huge sum of money that the Government has in hand for their founding is deemed to be necessary, a very serious position in regard to juvenile health is disclosed. Facing this conclusion, it seems evident that the Government will soon have to extend the “certificate of fitness” warranty to persons contemplating marriage. Sterilization of degenerates is no cruelty if it saves from being bom children whose lives are destined to be continual misery to themselves and whose preservation would become a charge on the State finances.—Yours, etc., P. June 12, 1937.