New Zealand's Greatest Need.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 8, 4 October 1907, Page 2

New Zealand's Greatest Need.

DR. MASON'S IDEAL, : Dr. J. M. Mason, Chief Health Officer for New Zealand, expresses his viows as- to New Zealand's greatest need, as follows "My ideal Dominion .would bo ono wherein everyone—so far as heredity will permit — would have an equal ohauce. Give every man, woman,, and child clean, Wealthy surroundings, good food, free, education, and an opportunity to work; and the welfare of tho State would be scoured. Tho irrevocably unfit should be put without the walls. Physical strength can in no sense ever be a measure of intellectual greatness. As Hood said, 'I have spat moro blood and made n:oro jokes than any man,' but physical fitness and animal health are liecessa/y if a Stato is to hold its place in tho world of nations. .We should work in the city and live in the country. Fresh air and healthy home conditions should be as. free as is our system of education. lf> a man's environment is. suitable he will follow the law of all nature—ho will live in the best sense of tho word. Insanitary surroundings and overcrowding spells more than physical degeneration. An ideal Dominion should have none of them. AYo should care for the children born into the State, because a healthy population is u country's best and greatest asset. All preventive ; diseases would bo provonted in tho ideal Dominion. A combination of all these conditions would have only one disadvantage—the citizens would have to leave the Dominion in order to die."