SAVE THE CHILDREN.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 191, 14 July 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

SAVE THE CHILDREN.

' In an article in the "Nineteenth Cen-tury'-—"The Hope of the Future'' Dr Mary Scnarl.eb discusses the causes of and makes sonic ivery important suggestions. "During these twenty months," she writes, "we have lost more than a hundred thousand killed, and probably five times the number wounded and sick, many of whom will not be" again efficient for either military or civil employment. These losses are of young men in the most useful period of life. . . Under our voluntary system of enlistment it is inevitable that the bravest the most adventurous and the men with the maximum of insight should offer themselves first." The one and only return the nation can make, 6he says, is lo value, to protect, and to save the children that are left to ner. Great and terrible as our losses have been in the war, they are practically equalled by the yearly loss of infant life. Of the ' eight hundred thousand babies bom, one hundred thousand do not live to see their first birthday. Further, we Know that one hundred thousand children conceived perish every year during the nine months before birth. The commencement of the campaign against infantile mortality must be antenatal. The war has revealed to women their capacity for organised work, and the emptiness of a life without work; and after tho war this grand work of promoting the nealth of mothers and tho welfare of infants and little children will offer an ample held for the energies of women and girls of every class. Dr. Scharlieb tells us the causes of infantile mortality, and she tells is also how they may be combated. Her suggestions arc neither Utopian nor visionary, and we commend her article to tho notice of our own Health authorities.