DOMINION BABY WEEK.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14546, 26 October 1917, Page 2

DOMINION BABY WEEK.

gO» . From October 28th to JVovombec- 2nrl Baby Week will bo celebrated throughout many of the centres of Nejw Zealand. The movement-' aims at .calling tho attention of every citizen to the present grave waste of national., assets owing to the unnecessary waste of young lives. It .lias , been calculated that every healthy young adult is worth more than £300 to the country, whereas on tho ether hand every unhealthy wastrel and.dependent is a serious liability. Hospitals-alone will soon be costing us £1,000,000 a year, to-say nothing of _the enormous expenditure on mental hospitals, charitable aid, and other forms of State assistance. The main cause of submergence and failure in the battle of life is ill health, and our expenditure on hospitals and charitable aid will'keep on-growing as long as we continue to rear and educate the race in ignorance of the primary laws of nature. The first step in tiie path of progress must be a general recognition of the

duty of health and the rights of tiie next generation. This we can best promote by firmly establishing the health of women and children. , • During the seven years following the. ■establishment of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children, in 1907, the infantile death rate for .New Zealand was reduced from 7} per cent, to 5 per cent. It ,is now the aim and ambition. of the j. society Ho reduce" the rate-to "2s" per Knu l Cl? ui-P- th- fourteen years-xperiod