TO REPAIR MAN WASTE.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 November 1917, Page 5

TO REPAIR MAN WASTE.

~*a- j_ HIGHLY CULTIVATED GERMAN INFANT. T Never before in history has a nation worked out the theory and practice of war as had Germany when, in 1014, she embarked upon the first stage of her conquest, of the world; and one of the matters which had been threshed out by her experts was the matter of man waste in waif. She v.as prepared to take measures to repair the man-waste; but, under-estim-ating tiie determination of the world not to enjoy the blessings of Prussian dominance, she did not put them into effect till it became clear that the war was going to last longer and bring about an infinitely greater man-waste than in her least optimistic moments she had ever dreamed. Then in the summer of Ml 5 she set about repairing that waste and took the measures her experts had worked out for her. She bewail at the very source of manpower, and set about saving the lives of lier babies. Their lives were no longer at tlie mercy of the milk-profiteer. They became the special care of the State. In the matter of milk the babies came first, and the rest of the nation, even the wounded and invalids, had to make shift witl; what milk there was left when the babies had had theirs. Very few people outside Germany realise the difficulties against which she has had to contend even in the matter of milk. She has had a bitter struggle against the big profiteering milk companies:, who were entirely regardless of the fact that every ten pounds of profit they put into their pocket meant the life of a child; she has had a bitter struggle against the farmer, who killed off his milch cows when there was more moniv in meat than in milk, and churned all his milk into butter when tbere was more money in butter than in milk. She has -had to make it a. penal offence to kill a milch cow, to feed milk to a pig, or to sell a churn to farmers from whom she wanted milk; site has actually had to seal up the churns in Hamburg. But she Cuts come out victorious from these struggles: and tin German baby and the German nursing mother have had their milk. CARE 'OF THE MOTHER. Even to-day when every week there are in the local papers of all the big German towns three columns of instruction? to one group of a thousand householders at a rationed householders, bow to get their foodtickets, vnu will always find the line, "Infants' Milk, Row 20.' 5." And though the milk-ticket which promises you a litre of preferential skim-milk or half a litre of deferred skim-milk may give you no milk at nil. though the ticket which promises you 51b of potatoes may only give you fioz of rice, that ticket for infants' milk will be honored in full. It is late to begin the process of preserving a baby's life when it has already been born sickly of an ill-nournshcd mother, and the Germans begin with the mother. For three months before her child is born she receives a litre, a pint and three-quarters, of milk a dav. She receives that amount during the time she is nursing her baby, and during the time that she is recovering from that nursing in order that she may be kept fit to become a healthy mother again. When th«. child reaches the feeding-bottle stage it receives a litre of milk a day till it is two years old. From two to four years it receives three-quarters of a litre a dav: fom four to six it receives half a litre a day. All this is full milk. After its sixth birthrlav it comes on to the preferential and deferred skim-milk which serves the rest, of the community. lint it has received a really good start in its iihvsical life: and that start, how(■ver had the condition in which it may have to live later will ne\cr onite he. lost: to those children who live in -rood conditions it will prove of incalculable advantase. Alreuly, by goincr to the sourc of man-power nnd saving the lives of her babies, 'icrmany has secured the result that ! n 10-21 G\ere will be more six-year-old children in Ormanv than if there ha= been a verv henw fall—as mile' 1 fu 50 per "cut. in some iwts of the eourlrv—in the birth-rat". That i--to sav Hint in M4l. sho'iH the IToben"olierno still be in no\voi\ Gcrmnnv will lie able to oiilvir'- o>i oivVnvor in eonouer Ihe verli ivith n 'iivt ""t <*< ••" • k—• <-<■ n better nwYdv than «he had in MM