OUR BABIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12064, 20 July 1917, Page 7

OUR BABIES.

(By HYGEIA.)

Published under the auspices of the Boval New Zenlani Society for the Health of "Women and Children

" It is wisor to put up n. fenco at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom."

SAVING THE BABIES IN ENGLAND.

Lloyd George's scheme for a "Save the Babies Week'' in the Old Country has done much to enhance the interest in the welfare of mother and child—an interest which had already been quickened throughout the whole world by the appalling and continuous sacrifice of lil'o due to the Great "War.

WHAT THE " LONDON TIMES " SAYS.

"Had our infant mortality been as low as that of New Zealand, we. should havo saved 100,000 babies during the first two years of the war—a number equal to milkmen killed at the front. " Second to the fighting forces, child wastage is absolutely the most urgentnational problem in each belligerent country. Whatever the outcome of the war. 1 lie future of each nation will depend on the quality and virility of its citizens in the. next two or three decades." However, the championing of the. cause of mother and child at Home has not been limited to "The Times ' and the Prime Minister. Lord Rhondda has also taken the matter up. as a mem- : ber of the Cabinet. He has proposed that a Ministry of Health shall be established at once, not only to compensate as far as possible for the wastage ■ of war-time. but. also as a tardy recog- j nit ion of the. fact that, the children of the rr'cc arc the "Trustees of the future." , If the children are not better born and better reared from now onwards than they hare been during our time, our successors will be in an even worse ■ plight than ourselves with regard to '•unfits and inefficient:?,'' both as regards military .service and rootheihood. ° Some data'lor Lord Rhondda's plea are set forth in a. recent issue of the '•'Daily Mail" by a physician, who writes as follows under tho heading SAVE THE BABIES. THE NEED FOR A HEALTH ' ministry. "Upwards of 'IO,OOO children under five Yea us of age die each year in England" according to the most recent, estimate of the. test-informed medico administrators. For the four years 1911191} the. exact figure was oeUib a ho-nre which represents more than a quarter ot all the deaths at all ages. ••Tins clearly is an appalling state of affairs, for by far the. greater part of that loss is avoidable lost- Since the. war began we. have suffered feartul depletion of our numbers on the battletield but. behind the battlefield, in the homes, our loss ha? been equally terrible. , . . ~ " In the homes we hare lost m these two and a half years, using the above reckoning, StfOjOUO children under five years of age. Moreover, the men who died in France died gloriously, selling their lives for England in a supreme cause; but the children who died, died miserablv, and there was nothing of plorv or gocd in that, sacrifice. No military failure, however disastrous, ever spent life to less purpose than tins toll ot splendid life has been spent. Liko a gambler, reckless in misfortune, has England cast away these pledges of her strength and greatnessIt is evident that this burning of the candle, at both ends cannot, continue. In peace time tjiis annual sacrifice to Moloch was dreadful enough ; in war time it. spells ruin. Our birth-rate falls and falls, tho best and bravest of our race are cut off, and the children who might have perpetuated their splendid'qualities are allowed to die by the hundred thousand. There is only ono passible end to this progress. Savin"" of infant Life is no longer a question of°charity, it is no longer a. question of social reform, it is no longer a. question of economic reorganisation or even a question of man-power. It is to-day a question of national existence, the greatest of all the questions bearing upon that problem. " It is for this reason that every man and woman in England to-day is personally concerned in the proposal which Lord Rhondda has made that a Ministry of Health should forthwith be instituted. That is no now proposal, for the "Daily Mail" made the suggestion years ago, as the present writer remembers very well. At that time, however, the. idea that saving infant, life concerned the Government of the conntry was not accepted. Now the suggestion appears in a very different light, and Lord Rhondda' g proposal is being discussed on every hand with the greatest eagerness. LIFE'S CRITICAL DAYS.

" Just, recently it was found at a great military hospital that a high proportion of young men who broke down in health as the result of training or sfirvico had been unablo to play games at school. They had been unfit in most cases over since they could remember. That army of unfits stands in the same relation to the babies who die as do the wounded on the battlefield to the killed. " That army, too, must be won for England in the days between the cradle and the schoolroom—which are by faith e most critical days, in tho health sense, in a human life- Lord Rhondda s scheme, if it succeeds, may mean the annual saving to tl,e country of as many as 300,000 fit men and women who would have been lost or crippled. That- is its full and complete justification, and that- is the reason why it deserves the help and support of every patriotic man and woman in the country."