The White Scourge

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 10, 12 May 1911, Page 6

The White Scourge

J. Ramsay Mac Donald on the Duty of the State.

Mr J. Ramsay Mad Donald, M.P., opened a tuberculosis exhibition at Leicester, England, in March, and delivered a suggestive address on the part the State can take in stamping out the disease. One of the most striking things in connection with consumption, he said, was that of the 60,000 PEOPLE. WHO I>IED EVERY YEAR of it. 11,000 were children and young persons and the assumption was that a large part of these became consumptives on account of tainted milk. These facts were exceedingly important, and, although they were horrible, they ought to be a source of hope. They could largely be dealt with by State activity. The State in nearly every direction from which this contamination came could protect the individual, and ought to be made to do so. In Stockholm a short time ago people began to take a serious interest in the spread of consumption in their midst. ~ They started a-wry careful and a. scientific investigation, and they discovered, much to their consternation and alarm, that the schools of Stockholm wore breeding grounds for the tuberculosis germs. What did they do? They began, by establishing AN ADEQUATE FEEDING SYSTEM. They supplemented their feeding system by a well-devised scheme for taking children from the schools into the country, and to-day one-half of the 26,000 children attending school in Stockholm Avent out every year into the country at the State's expense into open-air schools, and to special places prepared for their holidays. At first that might seem an expensive and improper undertaking, but Stockholm found it was paying them. Thrift, either personal or public, did not consist in saving. It consisted in wise expenditure. They must teach themselves the higher and more scientific thrift of a wise and scientific expenditure, an expenditure that would make them A STRONG, HEALTHY, ANI> MORAL PEOPLE; and tintil they approached their diseases from that point of view they would not be n-ea rly so wise as they had prided themselves on being. By a wise co-operation between the individual and the. State cleanliness could be inculcated until it became the rule through the whole country. They were talking in the House of Commons just now about State insurance against sickness. Now, what had been the first result of insurance against sickness in Germany ? It had not been, merely that the doctor^could send his patient to bed and tiie patient had an income. Tliat was g-ood; but that was a small thing. The first thing that happened iri Germany was that when they had working-class instirance it became the interest of the people to prevent disease, so that their insurance funds might be kept largo and their inimrance premiums low,- and to this end they had erected magnificent sanatoria in the pine woods to which the working people Avere sent when they were run down, to prevent rather than to cure disease. It 3iad became A VERY SERIOUS QUESTION for their town councils and for the State generally to see that Avhen saving lifeit did not merely save life of a low degree of vitality. The great work of the future which the State was going to undertake regarding the public hoalth was to remove the environments and circumstances of disease by providing good housing, by providing leisure and a sufficiency of food, and this must be done by th© release of certain economic forces, and not in the wav of charity.