AMERICAN INFANTILE MORTALITY.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 July 1923, Page 4

AMERICAN INFANTILE MORTALITY.

>AX i-HA.Nf IS! !). .)line 1. Another opportunity was afforded Amoritu to praise New Zealand when, in Washington, .Mrs Edith I'll me r Wood, the well-known Now Jersey housing expert, urged better homes as a means of saving baby lives, and she appealed to the i’nited States Government io utilise postal savings deposits in making building loans to American workmen. Speaking before thousand- oi delegates to the national eonierenee oi social work, Mi- Wood declared that American infantile mortality rates would be sharply .reduced if American workmen were "taken out oi shabby depressing. hand-me-down homes.’ Housing conditions in the l niled .''lutes, she added, are "thirty years behind Western and ( cntral Europe." "it is a lasting slmme that working !'••• p!o must live in frayed out house-. Mj. Wood said, '■when the Government. through slight financial aid, ■:,i 1,1 cram the iov.- .t’t-d benefits of ' ..a::-- to ten- ol thousands of families ,-. ) icsit pom., for them now. Mi • Wood urge ! the Government to ; i h o -it- : on the same basis as | j,: : I■l i ■ utilities by using postal savj hr. - in making direct loans to workIn- ■, ~! ■ ,re to build their own j lion; . ■ -', j. , | .Jr on u money- their own j c ie s." -a.’ added. "1 he Goverti- | meat a• v- them ‘2 per cent on it, and -ci ti e money in hanks which pay p-r i ut inter:.--!. Then tie l hanks lead it out at ii and S per cent, ini.....i ihe Government should lend it 1. ; ; i,, d- own citizens at the Same hoc iute- c-,t rale It pays. -It should give 1 hem twenty-five \ecr- to repay the prim ip. d. as they d : rev; in !! -Igium, r thirty—dx years as they do now in New Zealand. Ii is not !■■■• .-■'•(•ideut l ecu New Zee land. \-.;:h mi -tenth ft it- population owning their own h■ -ii-• - - t ’-rough Govern HU*'! I loan-, |;;l . I | HIT -t ill' lit mortal' i v rate oi 1 1.. v. .rid. It. i- hardly limn, than Imh of our-., ami America real I shot. Ihe - an.;- -aving of lathy lives II she housed her workmen in e!t an. '.■..■in It.tim-s.'’ mcnscMi :wa