AN AI NATION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 88, 8 January 1919, Page 6

AN AI NATION

BRITAIN'S TERRIBLE' HEALTH , ■ EECOKD. , There is nothing more illuminative, ne hit of lenowledse that has beer, added to the common stock in -the, last foui years more striking, than' the, ,phvs.ca mcapacitv of the people, said Sir Auckland Geddes, Minister of National Service, at ' n luncheon given by the Federation of British Industries. ;.. ( . . There is nothing more appalling, M added, than' tho list of thousands of men showing opposite their names the resul« of their medical examinations in the tost four years. after page reads: InVberoulosis. •tuberculosis, tuberculosis. ; . \hen "epilepsy"-but tuberculosis more Wnuent than all the'others put. to/ether. Yet tuberculosis is a. disease which can be banish*l. There are hu"flreds of thousands of men between IS nnd 43 who are (fci'iß from it., / He did not wonder at ndustr.al nn.' ■ re=t. He only wondered that there had not been a revolution yenrs ago because the record of our health bespeaks the re. cord of bad housing and lnsiifficient food, light, air. sleep, and recreation that re(lecte in.:the most dreadful way upon our life as a nation. The first clinrpe of tbe nation must be i its health. We have tnken more interest in pedigree stock in 'cattle, sheep, and, piss than in the great pedigree stock, the British nation. ' ' ' Dr. Addison, Jrinister of Reconstruc- .. tion, referring to after-war reorganisation, Piid a procrnmme h»e been arrang- : ed- with the Shipping Controller for brineing as nuickly w possible raw mntprials of which oi" - industries are sliort. The Ministry of Shipning is quite snngnine as to being' able to provide at 6li"rt notice the necessary tonnage. We must, ho said, keen our national word' to the trade unionists and neither they nor the employers will fail to recenise that the interests nf the future ( require a system vastly different from that which prevailed in the past.