RACE SUICIDE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2623, 4 October 1909, Page 3

RACE SUICIDE.

STATE CARE OF NEGLECTED

CHILDREN

INCREASE OF ‘■ INEFFICIENTS, ’•’

In easting his eye over the annual return of cash expended by tire Wellington and Wairarapa Charitable Aid Board in respect of outdoor relief last year, Mr It. C. Kirk (chairman of the board), referring to the item “Children boarded out' (Wellington included) — £3010,” gave expression to certain views which should afford some of our progressive economists something to ponder over. There was no doubt, ho said, that the expenditure under this heading was large, hut he was firmly convinced that they had some adequate return for it, and that the policy of State guardianship of children in poor circumstances could, with profit, to the .country as a whole he extended to benefit every child, legitimate or illegitimate/ who was so handicapped by conditions of birth and environment as to he denied a fair start in life. They were really beginning at the wrong end when they established the old age pensions ,system. If the State were to see, as an article of administrative responsibility, that every child received a fair start in life, the necessity for' dispensing charitable aid would he materially reduced, while the charge on the Old Age Pensions Fund would also be lightened. It would pay the State handsomely to do this. The whole question was one that appealed very strongly to him, and it was his intention to proceed further in the matter at a later date.

Mr D. M ‘Laron, M.P., agreed. The most drastic treatment should, he said, he meted out to those who neglected the sacred obligations of parental responsibility. The law should ho adamant on that point. Mr Kirk, continuing, said that tho question was rendered more acute by the decline of the birth-rate among what might he termed the "efficient” classes of the community. It was now a matter of simple fact that the race was increasing only among the "inefficient” classes—inefficient physically, mentally, educationally—and this could only have one result, national deterioration. The fact had to be faced, as France and America were already facing it, and the only way to meet this grave danger to the race was to make efficient citizens of the children of ininefficient parents. In France, if a child was considered to he in danger of being neglected, it wa s snapped up by the State and looked after. The United States Education Department /had a system of State control children which exercised efficient guardianship over a child birth to 13 or 14 years of age, with, a system of supervision up to the age pi 21 years. It seemed to him that it did not much matter whether the system adopted by the State took the form of orphanage asylunig or an extension of the present system of boardingout. The point to be reached was that all neglected < children should be cared for by the State.