A NEW HEALTH CONSCIENCE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The Rev. P. M. Gedge's proposition that unemployment benefit is insufficient to keep a family of children in a state of bare physical efficiency is indisputable, such benefit after the deduction of rent and rates being considerably short of the mimimum of 31s. 6d. as recently given in your colunmsby Mr. B. Seebohm Rowntree. One cannot therefore be too grateful for the generous interpretation by the L.C.C. of the clause in the Education Act which allows the grant of school meals from the rates. School meals have, in fact, become almost a form of out-relief, even to the extent that they may not run concurrently with genuine out-relief. At the same time they save many a family from application to the Public Assistance Committee and from the stigma they consider it involves. Mr. Ledge will perhaps allow me to correct his suggestion that under-nourishment with a view to school dinners nee& a medical certificate. School dinners are, on the coatrary„ usually granted immediately on the occurrence of distress and before under-nourishment has had time to set in.
It may be asked, where do the week-ends and the holidays come in? Such consideration certainly makes the rationale of school meals somewhat difficult to grasp. It is true that in regard to the holidays the educational authority avoids to its own satisfaction the appearance of inconsistency by suggesting application to voluntary agencies, being no doubt sublimely unaware that such agencies are not normally available within reach. The reality is that during the week-ends and holidays the children of necessitous families have mostly to go on short rations. The explanation may partly lie in the difficulty of applying legislation originally phrased for conditions of 20 to 30 years ago to the much changed conditions of the present day without some sacrifice of logic.
It is a matter for regret that, whilst so much is done to reduce educational retardation, so far as it arises out of lack of food, some action cannot be taken towards the same end, so far as it arises out of bad housing conditions and the consequent lack of sleep. Here golden opportunities are being squandered. For, whilst the housing authority is ready to allow priority to Council accommodation for cases of hardship, it never seems to have adopted any systematic or organized method for acquainting itself with such cases. The housing problem would have little importance but for the children ; and it is through the medical care of the children of school age and the ready facilities for correlating chronic and persistent illness and ill-health with the unfavourable housing conditions to which they may be found to be attributable, that a systematic and organized method of coping with overcrowded and insanitary conditions, wherever they are doing their deadly mischief, presents itself in its fullness.—I am, Sir, &c.,
24 Gayton Road, Harrow, Middlesex. H. J. BARTON.
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