The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1917. "BABY WEEK."

Taihape Daily Times, 29 October 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1917. "BABY WEEK."

(With which is incorporated The Tai hapo Post and Walmarino News).

Are the British a decadent people? Germany thinks they are, and entered upon the current bloody struggle with the belief that British decadency would be a factor in Britain's downfall. Certain it is that. decadency centreing in the questions of a declining birth rate and an appalling infant and child mortality is how exercising the minds of the various governments in our Empire, and there is a widespread awakening to the national importance of both questions, and ef-' forts are being concentrated in an endeavour to diminish this evil, that means little short of national suMde, if not firmly, and vigorously and .successfully dealt with. In Britain, where child mortality and decreasing birth rate have been so much cause for concern laws of a palliative kind have been passed and put into force, but! the contributing factors to our race suicide are so varied that whatever laws have been enacted only touch the fringe of the difficulty, and now that this great war is depopulating the world by the slaughter of its most virile men, and is leaving the < childbearing women in such unprecedented circumstances, this great dual curse upon our child life and birth rate has become so aggravated as to cause almost as much concern as the winnng of the war itself. After the war no question will be its parallel in importance We build maternity homes, pass Acts dealing with midwifery, and there we stop; anything further is what the people are doing for themselves or only with Government patronage. The factors contributing to our national suicide are pre-natal as well as post-natal. Our Government has done some things that are HeTfoful from the latter viewpoint, and has recently taken to practical means for eliminating or lessening' the cursg of genital diseases, but beyond this lies the much greater curse of pitiable ignorance; of vice; of pre-natal murder. Social environment, which forms the hotbed of pre-natal mortality must be determinedly, persistently and rigorously dealt with if a stay to the Empire's suicide is to be brought about. The nations are dying because they refuse to see and realise that established social conditions can only end in extinction. We are doing altogether too little in combating pre-

natal causes of national Even now, in the "B'aby Week" that is being held for the purpose of raising money to render more potent the work of that splendid organisation known generally as the Plunket Society,.only voluntary effort is being sought as a cure for the great national cancer that is consuming the naticnal life-blood. We do most sincerely trust that our people will continue to show that they 1 are superior to their Government and that they will give the Plunket Society a bounteous reward during this "Baby Week," that will enable them to continue effective work until we, as a people, realise that the subject of child-life will decide the fate, not only of New Zealand and Britain, but of the whole of western civilisation, if we "do not now wipe right out the national evils that are responsible for tb\» appalling loss of our infant life. In eastern 'empires where our vices and environments have no place in the national and social life, population is increasing at an amazing rate, and whether we are too stupidly bumptious to realise and admit or not, it will sooner or later be fatally impressed upon those who follow us. Shall we continue on our course of Babylonic pleasure heedless of what happens in the way of child-life destruction now, and to the extermination of the depleted race that is to follow, or shall we insist upon our legislature effecting a change, substituting natural for unnatural life and environment? True it is beyod all cavil that no more important question faces the governments of British people to-day than t-he upkeep of its manhood. The Empire is dangerously depleting its population; we in New Zealand cannot hope to replenish by emigration unless we take aliens of all colours. We must increase our birth rate .and stop the fearful inroads of death on our infants if we are to perpetuate the purity of our race. By making good the loss of British infant life by importing aliens to do what is requisite in national economics we are taking a decided step on the road to national destruction If we take to encouraging peoples of eastern countries amongst us we may picture what th' population of New Zealand will be like in the future; and if we could return from the grave in a few -hundred years time we should not recognise that any of our.blood ran in the veins of the people that was populating the country in our day. We are making provision for old age, but we neglect the children, the prospective wageearners and who constitute the national machinery. Truly, we may say with' t-he French people

• i ■• A. T "' that we are e'ternally boasting about, the advantages of secular education; about the inagnanimity of our land laws; about the incidence of our taxation, and the myriad of reforms advocated by fin* 4 - specimens of sophisticated cranks . with which our country is infested, while our national pulse beats feebler and feebler because we will not save our children; because we will not strive to have every child come into the world in the perfection that nature intended; because we will not elimiate the ignorance surroundig child-birth and child-rearing; because we will not remove the canker of unsuitable environment. No words can adequately tell of the good work that the brave women are doing voluntarily in an endeavour to alleviate anc render less fatal the coditions surrounding this supremely vital question of race perpetuation. Are men less concerned that they should leave such a question to the solved by women? While voluntary effort only is dealing with so hugely important a matter let us realise that it is our duty to do our utmost to help those of our women who are bearing the burden; they are voluntarily doing a great national work, let us not be mean in finding them the money, until such time as our legislature may deem it advisable or possible to remove the question from its casual and voluntary state. During this week special efforts are being made to raise funds so that the work of the Plunket Society may be continued and extended.