Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1st, 1920.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 November 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER Ist, 1920.

SAVING THE CHILDREN. Tins saving of infant life has. becom e a world wide effort. Referring to a recent publication on tbe subject, a reviewer points out that in “The Child Welfare Movement,” by Dr Janet E. Lane-Clayton, is an interesting account of a branch of social service the importance of which ,is yearly receiving greater recognition. Speaking gone-

rally, there is a close relationship between the vitality of the nation and its rate of increase. The latter is determined by the excess of births over deaths, and when the excess becomes very small it clearly behoves the nation to take steps to preserve its own future. France was the conspicuous example of this. For many years before the war the population had remained almost stationary, but with a tendency to decrease. In iother countries, where the excess of births over deaths was still great, statistics, so far aB they were available, suggested that it was diminishing fairly rapidly. The realisation of the danger of race suicide produced in th e ’seventies and ’eighties a movement to counteract it. There were two alternatives. Either the number of births should be increased or the number of deaths should be reduced. Tlie former course was hardly practicable; a falling birth-rate seems to be an accompaniment of advancing culture, and oven when, as in France, positive inducements have been held out to people to have large families, they have not been very successful. But it was possible to lower the infantily mortality rate, and to this the movement was directed. Many of those who originally took part in it were doubtless actuated quite as much by philanthropic motives as by an appreciation of the need of the work, hut now it is universally recognised chat, quite apart from' questions of humanity the prevention of avoidable deaths, the correction of defects, and the improvement in children’s health generally are vital to national well-being. Fingland, France, and Belgium have taken the lead in the work, and it is interesting to note that thp tendency has been to attack the problem ever at an earlier stage. Prenatal attention to the mother is now regarded as a,n essential feature of the movement. Dr Lane-Clay ton describes what is being done in Britain and elsewhere, and leaves us with the conviction that we in Australasia have still much to learn in this respect.