OUR BABIES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1623, 14 December 1912, Page 11

OUR BABIES.

[BT HTOBU.] . "It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." (Published Under the Auspices of the Sooiety for the'•Health of Women and Children.) BRIBING THE PARENTS. The britio of £5 a head now being paid by the Australian Commonwealth, "not to the babies themselves for their, benefit, but to the parents who do just as they please with it, "strikes one as being the most extraordinary, illogical, and useless waste of publio money that has ever been entered on in tho name of childhood, but really for the sake of politics. The indignant Australian baby may well say, "Whero do I come in?" does ho come inp ■ Tho bonus is paid alike to all: the mother of the most wronged illegitimate infant can get five pounds' worth of finery for herself, simply becauso ehe has imposed life oa a little victim whom she may neither keep nor care for, and who enters our world tainted sometimes with cruel and incurablo disease—a grave responsibility for üb; not for her. But, apart altogether from such cases, what good will the £5 bonus confer on any child—what fraction of the JIIBOO a day, which the Australian cables inform us are now being paid out, will be spent on the baby, or, indeed, on anything tending.directly or indirectly to the benefit or elevation of motherhood or babyhood? ' ... WILL THE BRIBE BRING MORE BABIES? Does anyono seriously think that the bonus is going to tempt even the most thoughtless couple in the'world to deliberately incur an annual expenditure several times gerater than the single sum of £5, receivable once for all? Is such a sum going to induce parenthood if a child is not desired on natural grounds? One hundred pounds is a common affiliation award for the half-share responsibility of •one parent?. WHO HATCHED THE BONUS IDEA? With singular unanimity, the newspapers have ascribed tho five pound bonus to the exigencies of a political situation ,and have freely referred to it as the five-pound bribe; but this conveys only-the more immediate motive of the bonus, not-the'ultimate source of, the idea. ■ That lies deeper. ENDOWMENT OP PARENTHOOD. The desire, genuinely and adequately, to endow . parenthood has long been a dream of humanitarian statesmen; but probably Benjamin Broadbent, Mayor of Euddersfield, with his email cash reward inspiration, eomes nearer than anyone, else to' being tho originator of the idea which has borne such costly, strange, and grotesque fruit when grafted on to a different stock under new conditions in Australia. . As all the world knows, Mr. Broadbent, some seven years ago, issued formal promissory notes to the people of, Huddersfield,. undertaking to pay a guinea to each mother who had a breast-fed baby alive at the end of 12 months. Tho result was an astonishing increase of breastfeeding, and a corresponding decrease in infant mortality.; But the Mayor deserved and achieved much more than this. Hβ did not limit himself to the mere.issue of promissory notss; ho earnestly .studied, questions bearing on the well-being of mother and child,, and lectured and otherwise disseminated helpful information, thus arousin.j; increased interest in tho caro. of children. ' The guinea '.was.. offered . as. a reward and inducement for doing the best for the infant after it' ; was born; not'as h bribe to give birth to a baby; and small as was the - sum promised, it actually "proved effective. .■.ln the first place,, the novel .odea, gained .a" hearing' for sound,' : 'wh'ole's6irie v ''advice, directing attention to tho mother's health, and breastfeeding; and, in the second place, tho guinea did prove .an actual incentive to the suckling of babies in" the case of the very poor population,' for whom it was intended. It was quite natural, and, indeed, reasonable, of the indigent mother to say to herself, "Well, the Mayor has convinced me that breastfeeding is best and easiest for myself and my child; and, since ho offers a guinea into the bargain, I'm going to deserve and win -it;" '"'.'■■'' One may safely say that each guinea spent by Benjamin Broadbent was likely to do more good than- an -isvcrage hundred pounds of the largesse, now being recklessly scattered broadcast by the. Commonwealth politicians;, indeed, there is justification ' for the contention that in some directions the ..Australian bribe., ■tends, to bo harmful and demoralising. Can anyone pretend to eipt'ct any benefit to (ho cause of higher motherhood and babyhood from such a scheme? . THE NEW. ZEALAND SCHEME. Contrast the above with what may bo ■called the New. Zealand scheme—in other words, the work of the Society for tho Health of Women and Children—which had its inception over eeven years ago, and has gradually evolved into p. broad public-health organisation, binding together the wholfi community in one sympathetic, self-reliant, co-operativo effort for mutual aid and education in the claims and needs of motherhood and 1 babyhood. With us,. what is learned by the Plunket Nurses at the society's special Baby Hospital, is conveyed by them to the local committees and to tho mothers, and thus spreads from one household to 'another, aided by some 200,000 copies of "Our Babies" column appearing weekly : throughout tho press of tho Dominion, and by the (society's 'books and pamphlets.- .'■■■. To effect the above without State aid was! scarcely to be expected, and tho society appreciates the generous, support accorded by the Government, tho subsidies now authorised amounting to rathor over J52000 a year. However, this sum suffices for a million of population, and is not a sixtieth of tho .£125,000 a year that it would cost to merely pay a five pound bonus per baby, without doing anything at all in the way of educating the community or appreoiably bettering the lot of mother or child. Australia is actually paying out at the rate of ovor half a million sterling a year .in "baby bonuses"—gratuities which, as Dr. Saleoby foresaw and prophesied long ago, in his book "Parenthood and Race Culture," must prove ineffective. . From first to last the society has been peculiarly fortunate in receiving generous held from a number of public-spirited and humano people. The latest expression of this spirit is. contained in the following letter, received , last week. by Dr." Tr'uby King, president of the society, from Mr. Joachim, general manager. of the Westport Coal ComDany:—- . -, "Dear Dr. King,—l am glad to hear you are goins:, to lecture on the' West Coast on the health of women.and children, and that there will probably' be -a Plunket Nurso establishment at Greymouth.' I am, as vou know, more especially interested in Westport and its neighbourhood, and I feel confident that a nuTse at Greymouth will havo as much as ever she can. do to manage that and tho surrounding • placeswithout attempting to come to Wcstpott. "I have done what I can to ameliorate tho lifo of tho workmen at our mines; but so far I have not been able to do anything for the workmen's wives. Now, it seems to me that nothing can lighten the burden of life in tho case of a married woman who has to bring up a family and attend to hev household duties so much as to give her the benefit of the society's system, .to bo taught first by yourself and.Mrs. King, and the teaching to be continued by a Plunket Nurss established in Westnort, to take chaTgo of that district, including Wnimansaroa, Denniston, Burnett's Face, Birchfield, Granitv, Millerton, and, if required, Mokihinui. To enable the necessary fund to bo raised I am pleased to say that the Westport Coal Company will subsidise locally by giving £ for £ up to .£IOO per annum for a period of three years, on condition that the nurse's services are, to lw wholly given to the places above-named. To start a local subscription, you can put me down for ,£lO for the present year." HAIRWOSK. Mrs. Haybittle makes a specialty of Artistic and Up-to-dato Hairwork. Only the best of English Hair used. Head Massage, Shampooing, Cutting, etc, 268, LAMBTON QUAY, ''. 'Phono 1694, Ot« firr, .PfcwJst,