The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1918. A LIFE-SAVING ORGANISATION.

Taihape Daily Times, 17 May 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1918. A LIFE-SAVING ORGANISATION.

(With which is Incorporated The -Taihapo Post and WaTnramo News)..

The annual report and statement of accounts of the Taihape branch of “The Eoyal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children” has just been published. This report is not one of the perfunctory documents too often issued by some public and philanthropic institutions. The Society that issued it has been of incalculable benefit to the nation at all times during its history, but while a war, in which the whole world is involved is raging, its great usefulness can scarcely be over-estimated. Past history of the world discloses that wars have acted upon the human much as the laws of supply and demand do upon markets and finance. They create a numerical disparity between the sexes; with the slaughter of male life men appreciate and women depreciate; they have been placed at an undesirable disadvantage, a disadvantage that has rendered them something of minor consequence, there being after many, years of devastating wars a surfeit, of them, and they have in olden times become .almost the slaves of their lords. The present war will disturb the numerical balance of the sexes in most of the countries involved in it. In New Zealand we have a male population of about 530,000, including Chinese and half-castes; the proportion of Tvomen to men before the war was about SO to 100 inclusive of all children, The number of adult males between the ages of 20 and 55, inclusive was about 274,000, and before the war closes it is probable New Zealand will have lost by death and disease at the front, at least 20,000. Here we are presented with the awful fact that just about one-twelfth of the prime manhood of our country will have been destroyed; and almost as many more .-will have had their health seriously impaired. It almost seems as though the Society for the Health of Women airi Children came into existence as the result of foreknowledge of what this great Hun scourge was going to result in. To disregard the health of woman is to weaken the stamina of the nation. At no time in its history did our Empire need more healthy children than it docs at the present. Millions of British virile men will have died as the result of war, and to replace them the Erapre urgently needs the services of inestimable value the Society is rendering. That most excellent results have been attained may be seen from the report of the Central Council of the Society. The mortality rate of children has been lessened since the Society was founded by some thousand a year. If half that number had been saved a glorious result would have been accomplished. After the- war our Empire, and particularly our country, will feel a pressing need for all the children that can be reared, and more espccialliy the healthy off-spring, reared in healthful environment, of healthy mothers. One of the main purposes of the Society for the Health of Women and Children is to train and employ nurses, whose duty it will be to give, gratis, sound, reliable instruction, advice and asteistjance to any member of the community to whom such advice would be useful. The objects of the Society plainly state that it was found that there was as much need for reform amongst the educated a.nd well-to-do as there was amongst the so-called poor and ignorant In Taihape a nurse is available for all who seek her services, and, lot us repeat, at no time in the history of our race was there greater need for saving every child that is born and in bringing it to healthful maturity.. It should, in advocating extended public recognition of the work of the Society, not bo necessary to draw attention to the serious shortage of labour of all kinds, particularly of youthful labour of both sexes. Farmers who raise food for the nation are hampered in production because of labour being unobtainable and

mothers of families arc at their wits ends to properly care for their growing children because they can get no domestic help. Surely a society that is saving one thousand children’s lives every year is something worthy of public appreciation and support.