WAR’S RAVAGES AND THE NATIONAL FUTURE

WELFARE OF MOTHERHOOD

In the Guildhall, yesterday afternoon, took place an important gathering, the primary purpose being to initiate what is intended to be a national campaign for the promotion of the welfare of motherhood and infancy, in view of the ravages which are being wrought by the war upon the best manhood of the country.

Sir T. VEZEY STRONG, in his introductory remarks from the chair, said we were draining the country to-day of its very life-blood, and of its best, soundest, and noblest citizens. In no other way could this loss be made good than by rearing up a new generation as strong and healthy, mentally and morally, as that which was to-day fighting on the battlefield.

DRAIN ON OUR LIFE-BLOOD.

Mr. WALTER LONG, who followed, said the war cast upon us, as a people, a supreme duty. It was, he believed, a mere truism to say that never in the history of the nation had our people shown such fortitude, coolness, and steadfast determination as they were manifesting to-day. (Cheers.) There were two sets of critics – those who said that the story of the war was pitched in too high a key, and those who declared that everything was going wrong. He did not believe that this sort of carping criticism was to be found among the great mass of the people. (Cheers.) This was a time not so much for the critic as for the worker and the builder. (Renewed cheers.)

Mr. Long warmly commended the work of the National Association for the Prevention of Infant Mortality. At the present moment, he said, we were making terrible sacrifices of the best and bravest among us. Already the fathers of the future were greatly depleted in numbers, so that it behoved us, ten times more urgently than when the organisation was founded, to see that the lives of our women were cared for, and that our children in their youngest days were protected, if it were possible, against those ailments which carried to an infant grave many a life which might have been full of value and promise for its country.

WIVES’ ALLOWANCES.

Today there was an enormous number of men serving their country on land and sea in all parts of the world, and their women and children at home had had very liberal allowances made to them by the Government for their maintenance. Were we quite sure that in all cases that money was wisely and well spent? He was not there to throw stones at anybody; but was it not true that by want of knowledge, want of forethought, want, perhaps, of the moral power of resistance, advantage had not been taken of this increased revenue, as it might have been, to improve the condition of the women, and of the children, whose lives were so precious?

His present mission was to ask the women of England to help in the task of social reform which the meeting was designed to advance – a task rendered doubly important by the fact that we were at war. (Cheers.) If people were in search of “war work,” here was “war work,” if not directly, at all events indirectly.