DECLINING STAMINA

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 241, 2 October 1939, Page 3

DECLINING STAMINA

YOUNG SOUTH AFRICANS JNSUFF.ICI.KINT AILLK JOH AXX E.S liH’B'G, Aug. B.—‘M am getting rather tired of elderly gentlemen .at conferences talking academically about malnutrition. Let us call it by its proper name—starvation. And let ns luce the question : the staple foods are being produced in the country. lint young South Alrica is not getting them.” Air. T. A. Rlakcley, retiring president of the Natal Teachers’ Society, made this Blunt- statement during Ins mldiess nt the annual conference in Alariizburg. “In the last quarter of a century, the stamina of our school-children lias declinedbe said. “Elnglundi’s has improved. It is not a case ol one country being prosperous and the other not. England, despite her unemployed and an income tax ol 4s 5d m the pound, has laced the question ol underfed children. We have not. And England' in her hour ol need is reaping 'tint benefit to-day. Ol the thousands who have attested under the Conscription Act, 9i) per cent, have been passed medically lit and 84 per cent, are in the ‘A’ class.” In England every child lias his bottle of milk each day. In Houth Africa we promise the child the surplus milk, but when is there a surplus y “I visited England two years ago and was impressed by the healthy appearance ol the* school childien. There the position lias been reversed. When I came to Natal 27 years ago. | was. impressed by the general air of well-being among the school-chil-dren. It was in striking contrast with rlio impovei islied under-led appeal >in<e of the children I had left behind in tin- industrial north of England.— Sunday Tunes.