SAVE THE BABIES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 223, 8 June 1918, Page 3

SAVE THE BABIES

AUSTRALIA'S GREAT PROBLEM

THE MENACE OF EMPTY

CRADLES

WASTAGE OF LIFE ENDANGERS NATIONAL SURVIVAL.

(By Neville Mayman.)

For all our grumbling there is about us, Australians, a smug feeling of satisfaction, Other peoplo have noted tho fact. Among those who studied us at close quarters before the war was Professor Mamies, who. on his return to Germany, wrote "Tho standard of living in Australia even of the lower classes is unqualifiedly higher than that of corresponding classes anywhere in Europe, and as, J believe, even iu America. Nowhere in the world is the workman subjected to a less exhausting struggle for existence; nowhere is he able to live more comfortably than in Australasia, "Nowhere, however, is there, in my opinion, so little idealism as in tho great ppdjr of tho population of Australia and Aew Zealand, nowhero has one. at least until quito lately, thought less of becoming involved in a war, of being conquered by another nation, than hers, 'i'hero is satisfied comfortableness on the one hand; the obtaining with so little effort of favourable labour conditions and of political power on the other; the absence for many decades together of fear of a foreign enemy, as well as tho ultrademocratic policy which thinks only of the moment and scarcely at all of the future. "All these factors may furnish the psychological explanation why tho natural increase of the population as well as tho increase by immigration has been exceedingly neglected." Still Satisfied. . Sinco these words were written wb have been spectators of the most terrible j war the world has known, and .though i our fate with tliat of the Empire, hangs ! in_ the balance, it cannot truthfully be said that the feeling of self-satisfaction Professor Jlannes found in us, has. grown any less. Australia is still the working man's paradise, and the enemy is held in check far enough without the gates to relieve ns of immediate anxiety. Of course the Allies are going to win the war. Wo tako that for granted, as we take so many other things, And after peacs is signed, what then The answer comes pat enough: "Why, with its magnificent resources, Australia will go ahead by leaps and bounds." ... It is a comfortable thought this, but what warranty have we for it? A handful of peoplo cannot hope to develop the resources of a continent as large as the United States at a pace rapid enough to prevent outsiders from seeking to tako a hand. ' And if wo cannot people the empty spaces of Australia is it likely, in view of the land hunger of congested European and Asiatic countries, that we shall bo allowed to retain its exclusive possession. The Root of War. Is it not a faot that at the root of most wars lies the biological necessity which drives populous communities to extend their territories? The defeat of .Germany in the present war will not dispose of "population pressure"; it will only postpone it. Among the teeming millions of China, India; and Japan .there is also a natural desire for morn elbow-room. Against Iheso Eastern peoples wb have erected an artificial barrier. 'We have decided to keep Australia a white country, but Iho only way, we can hold it is by peopling it. Herein lies Australia's greatest problem. After 133 yoars of settlement, our population is still under fivo millions. Our great distance from Europe has been tho main cause of this tardy development. The tide of European emigration has been steadily set westward to the United States and Canada. But a reason other than remoteness from the Old Land has materially affected colonisation. From lime to lime various States havo relieved a shortage in the labour market by offering assisted passages for certain classes of workers, like farm hands and domestic servants, but no statesmanlike scheme for encouraging immigration has been put into operation. In this connection Labour unionists, liko-some of their brethren in tho professional classes, have been constantly hostile io tho bringing in of strangers "to take tho bread out of their mouths.'' Doleful Figures. In the year beforo tho outbreak of-war tho excess of_ arrivals over departures was only 51.775, or nearly 30,000 Isss than in 1912. Since 1914 immigration has ceased, and the balance has been heavily tho other way. Similarly, the estimated increase of population which in 1912 was 164,652, fell in 1913 to 138,700, in 1914 to 68,893, and in tho following years, with the dispatch of our soldiers to tho fighting-lines, disappeared altogether. And tho birth-rate, which in IS6I, was 42.28, has diminished in 1916 to 26.78.

If our position before the war was unsatisfactory, what is to be said of it now, when close on 47,000 of the best of our young manhood havo fallen on the battlefield, and 129,000 others have been physically disabled, many of them permanently maimed and unfitted for further work? In quality as in quantity our losses in men are unprecedented. It took us ovor twenty years to raiso those gallant soldiers, and their loss to the community will be better appreciated when we reflect, as Sir Robert Baden-Powell points out, that the real issue of the present war will be decided twenty-five years hence by the quality of the life then surviving at early manhood and womanhood in the now combatant nations. ; To Make Up Our Losses. This brings ns to 'lie second important aspect of Australia's problem—how to make np for our losses. The one and only way open to us at present ii to save the new and coming life. Greater than all the losses in war. in this conntry, as throughout the Empire, is the perennial wastage of infant life. In the United Kingdom a baby dies every five minutes dll the year round. Every year 1 110,000 infants fail "to reach their first | anniversary. Another 140,000 ere lost each year before birth.

In tho Commonwealth during the ten years ending 1915 tho deaths of children under ono year' totalled 98,770; under five years 130,028. The ante-natal loss is estimated to be as large as, if not larger, than tho post-natal loss. This refers to infants that die in their first year. More than the half of these deaths are believed to -bo duo cr. »rcventible causes.

It has been argued that in tho Irish rate of infantile mortality we have tho biological process of tho extinction of the unfit working itself out to the ultimate benefit of the race. But ougenists while Subscribing to the Darwinian teaching, declare that the process of infant destruction is a hideous counterfeit of natural selection, "Natural selection," says Dr. C. W. Saleeby, "either slays or -spares, but this process of infant destruction slays and spoils, damaging many of those which survive." History of New Movement. The movement for tho saving of child,lifc which is now so widespread in tho United Kingdom is really (lie history, of a military problem. At the time of tho Boer War it was found, that physical defect's rendered many men useless. Physical training was recommended, and doctors wore sent into the schools to safeguard the, health of the children. But experience soon showed that the only effective way of coping with physical defects and securing a virile and healthy raco was to begin nt the. beginning. So public attention and effort which began with toothless recruits was directed back to infancy and motherhood.

For tliis lesson Britain was larjjoly indebted to France nml Belgium. 'IVenly years ago Professor Pierre Budiii, nf iPfirw, began his campaign for Hie welfare of infancy. A system was instituted iirst of feeding babies with suitably prepared tnilk, then of feeding the baby through, tho mother by feeding her, and last ami best of all, .feeding the expectant

mother, and educating them all in tho care of their babies. Dr. Miele, of Ghent, opened the first school for mothers in 1901, and from that school of his have sprung the thousand that now exist in Franco, the four hundred in Great Britain, and the seventy-seven in Belgium. Where No Baby Dies. There is a Commune in France where for ten- years no baby died and no mother died in childbirth. According to Dr. Saleeby infant mortality ought to bo nothing per I.POO per annum. No infant should die, no embryo should die. The principle of savinrj the infant, through sound fatherhood and sound and guarded motherhood, is the solo principle by which this evil can lie totally obliterated. According to expert authority only a few causes having slight numerical consequences of infant mortality have anything whatever to do with the racial quality of the parents or with natural heredity. "Racial poisons" often acting beforo conception at all, are said to bo responsible for much infant mortality and havo nothing to. do with truo hereditv genetics. The most important of these poisons is syphilis, a cause beyond anything yet realised of the destruction of life that began healthy. Dr. Armnnd South estimates that half of the infant mortality More birth is due to syphilis, "a racial poison which has a faithful and tmsty ally in alcohol." Call for Action. Great as may bo Britain's need of saving the infants born to it. Australia's necessity wholly eclipses it. We are a handful of peoplo in a coveted land. War-exhausted Europe will have fow emigrants to spare us for years to come. Our future lies with our babies, with mothers and expectant mothers of the Commonwealth. We must save every life wo can. In April last I submitted to tho New South Wales Government n scheme for tho foundation of a society for the welfare 'J mothers and infants similar to the Plunket Society of New Zealand, and to liko bodies in other parts of the world. Each State ought to have voluntary associations' of this kind, and I hope shortly to bo able to take the necessary steps for the formatiou of 6uch a society in New South Wales.