UNMARRIED MOTHERS
BISHOP 01' BIRMINGHAM'S PLEA. At a public meeting organised by the Council for tho Unmarried Mother and her Cliilil, held at. tho London Mansion House recently, tho Lord Mayor, who presided, ,said that tho movement was in keeping with the awakening national interest in, and concern for, tho child life of our country. It would need u sonorous measure of help from the public, for it had set before itself an object not easy to attain. One of tho difficulties lay in tho reluctance of welldisposed peoplo to identify thmselvos with this particular phase of social service, and another was that to cmnbino in (ho prosecution of a practical scheme considerable wisdom una tact wero required. The Bishop of Birmingham said ho was 110 advocate of an easy dealing with tho chronically immoral. It was not always the woman with a child who was most guilty. She was, at any rate, better than sho \\vho _ sinned safely through a knowledge gained, God know how. While not condoning wrong, one could not deny that circumstances often mado for vice. It was easy to bo harsh if unteinpled. It was sometimes possible ,by forcing an erring couple into marriage, to do more harm than prevailed before. In the attempt to do what was moral one might do what was immoral after all. It was not merely utilitarianism that tho council was after; it was Christianity. Colonel Sir diaries Wakefield said that in this country 37,000 children wero born out of wedlock every year, and tho fact that of that number 7500 died before they were a year old, wheroas- the death-rate of legitimate children was only half that percentage, was a grave indictment of our previous indiflcrenco and a challenge which all who cared for social justice must accept. AVo could not deal with these babies ns many people did with unwanted Kittens flistl puppies.
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Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 181, 26 April 1919, Page 8
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315UNMARRIED MOTHERS Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 181, 26 April 1919, Page 8
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