'CHILDREN'S MEALS AND PARENTS' POCKETS.
[TO TER EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR." J
SIE, —In the excellent article on the above subject in your issue of March 10th there are two sentences the accuracy of 'which the late experience of Leeds seems to call in question.
They are these:—
" We imagine that the teachers are the persons most likely to have accurate knowledge of the circumstances of the children, and so of the parents. - The children will have been under their observation, and in many cases they will have had opportunities of seeing the parents and of forming their own conclusions as to the extent of their poverty."
The following is the experience of the Leeds Board of Guardians, of which I am a member. Out of 3,025 names of children sent by the teachers through the Education Committee to the Guardians as" underfed," 1,347 have so far been visited by special officers of the Guardians. These officers have reported to a Committee, who have considered each report, with the result that 690 have been judged to be "no case." This decision has been based on facts such as are shown in the following three cases
(a) Man, wife, and two children.—Teachers' report : "Tem- porarily incapacitated from feeding children." Officers' report : Man earning regular wage, 13s.; wife, a weaver, earning 16s.; total, £2,9s. ; man in Engineers' Society and Lodge.
(b) Man, wife, and four children.—Teachers' report : "Tem- porarily incapacitated." Officers' report: Man's regular wage, .f..3 105.; daughter earning 18s.; total, .f.,4 &S.
(c) Man, wife, and six children.—Teachers' report: "Apparently urgent." • Officers' report : • Man employed by Corporation at regular wage, .21 18s. ; son and two daughters earning 19s.; total, £2 us.; man in lodges and trade society, children well fed, home clean; exceptionally thrifty parents and contrivers.
Is it not a fair conclusion from such eases (of which there are scores) that the teachers generally have not sufficient "knowledge of the circurtistances " to enable.them to judge what children are underfed, at any rate in large towns ? Leeds is not likely to be
in any .way eirceptional. ,
May I ask onb question to which I am very anxious to learn the true answer ? Take the following case. A man in the boot trade with a wife and six children, earning from 12s. to 15s. a wee/r, steady and hard-working. There are many such cases at the present time. We are all anxious to help such cases. It is a
delight to have the power to feed, such children on almost every ground. But if such children are fed on a large scale because of depression in a certain trade, will wages rise in that trade, or will they tend to stagnate or fall? That is my question. All will agree that it is better for every man to have sufficient work and wages to feed his own children than to have insufficient work and wages and to be helped by some one else to feed them. Are we by feeding the children so covering up the effects of a disease that we shall be inclined to postpone the cure of its cause?
Leeds.
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