Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1943. FOUNDATIONS OF WELFARE.
is the fifth anniversary of the death of a man who is held in grateful memory, not in New Zealand only but in many other countries as well, for the great work he did in promoting the health and welfare of mothers and infants. As time' goes on it is bound to be perceived ever more clearly that the founder of the Plunket Society, Sir Truby King, made a noble continuing contribution to the establishment, from the brqadest viewpoint, of higher and better standards of community and national life. The work to which the society is dedicated was never more necessary or more valuable than at present, when our own country and many others, in an epoch of deadly stress and tragedy by no means ended, are able at last to see the dawning promise of better and brighter days. One effect of the teachings of Sir Truby King and of the organised work and service based upon these teachings has been a remarkable lowering of the infantile mortality rate. This saving of infant lives has been acomplished, not by the salvaging of weaklings, but by a bold and enterprising application of the laws of health to the care of mothers and their offspring. In that way not only are' the narrowest practicable limits beingset to the waste and loss of infant lives, but firm foundations are being- laid for the development in health, strength and vigour of individuals and of the community.
Sir Truby King was a truly great and enlightened pioneer. It is upon an ever-extending application of the principles he applied particularly to the care of mothers and infants that our own nation and others must rely if they wish to play an effective and worthy part in the world as time goes on. There is much talk at present of the unsparing efforts that will be demanded of men and nations if the expectations widely and confidently entertained of marked progress, after the war, in the improvement of national and international relationships, social organisation and living standards are to be realised. It is recognised by thinking people that the demands made upon our own nation and others when peace has been re-established will be in some respects even more searching and more exacting than those now being met gallantly in the actual stress off war. The dangers that will arise after the Avar were stated effectively by Sir Stafford Cripps, when he spoke the other day at his election as Rector of Aberdeen University.
Defeated totalitarianism (he said) might, like the French Revolution, impress its forms and ideas upon the victorious nations unless democracy was awake to thb dangers and determined in action.
A vigilantly alert democracy, capable of giving practical expression and effect to its principles, must first and foremost be a healthy democracy. Physical and mental health are the indispensable underlying condition of vigorous enterprise in the individual and the community and of a sound social morality. With these simple facts in mind, the work of the Plunket Society in progressively improving standards of national health obviously in itself is of commanding importance and at the same time points the way to much that has yet to be undertaken and accomplished in the interests of human development and welfare.
Masterton and other parts of the Wairarapa, as elsewhere in the Dominion, liberal voluntary support of the Plunket Society, in years of war as in years of peace, bears witness to a very general understanding and appreciation of the value of the service it is rendering to the community. The Masterton branch of the society will be making its annual house to house appeal for funds during the week commencing on February 22 and it may be taken for granted that there will be again, as thM’e always has been, a ready and generous response.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 February 1943, Page 2
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649Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1943. FOUNDATIONS OF WELFARE. Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 February 1943, Page 2
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