IRE NATIONAL ASSET.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2392, 6 January 1909, Page 2

IRE NATIONAL ASSET.

BONUS FOR BABIES

We do not know that Mr. Arthur Griffith’s proposal to grant a bonus on babies is likely to -be taken very seriously -(says 'the “Sydney .Morning Herald”), but, ;at any rate, it suggests a topic which is among the most serious we can consider,, and it 'is clear we shall have to consider before long. When the time comes that public opinion lias learned to look upon the birth-rate as a matter in which the State has a direct concern it will doubtless seem to the more enlightened consciousness towards which we slowly move that Mr. Griffith’s suggestion is altogether too crude and partial a method of dealing with the problem. Yet even as it stands, it is certainly not fair game for the -humorist -who will ho apt to crack a superficial joke upon it. Every child who shows the probability of surviving to -maturity is a national asset of a unique kind. It possesses a value to the iState, and we all admit that fact when we' recognise that patriotism :and the rearing of children are very closely connected. • As an incentive to a higher birth-rate, however, the proposal is probably inadequate. Those who repudiate the first and most important of social obligations could hardly bo induced to mend their ways for a £5 note. At the same time there arc doubtless many cases, particularly -among those who live out hack, where such monetary assistance would he well timed, and a real help. We could nob say in such cases that an' abuse was being made of public funds if grants of the kind mentioned were made. When one thinks of tho hardship so many Australian women undergo, and how herojc is their struggle with circumstances, twice the allowance suggested by Air Griffith would seem a small expression of the gratitude the State must feel to the mothers of the next, generation. Financially there is, of course, nothing impossible about such ,a scheme, and logically it does not stand on a very different basis from, sav. tho undertaking by the State oT the education of the children. Whilst motherhood will always have its sacred place, there is no doubt that tho State will tend more and more to assume a corporate responsibility towards the young. Already it has made a beginning in the shouldering of responsibility that no ono would have dreamed of tackling a century ago. "We realise that it is part of our corporate business, for instance, to educate mothers in the eare of the young, just as much as fi is to educate the -children when they have survived to school age. We realise that to some extent -wo are responsible for the health and p-UAsi-ciuo of school children, and doubtless wo shall come to a fuller share cn tins responsibility. It is not hard to see, therefore, what is likely to come. The -State will begin to interest ltselt in the child as soon ns it is born.