Politics and the Land 



more extended evil of the under-payment of a 

 large proportion of unskilled labourers. Even 

 where employment is regular and the family 

 sober, the wage earner is often not paid enough 

 properly to keep his family or efficiently to feed 

 his growing children. 



Again, if we are to prevent a ruinous degeneracy 

 of race from setting in, it must be possible for 

 mothers and those about to become mothers to 

 receive a far greater degree of care than is the 

 case at present ; it must be made practicable 

 for them to avoid work during the critical time. 

 This is particularly needful in the towns, where 

 the recuperative power of the human being is 

 less than it is in the country. 



It should not be difficult to devise public 

 kitchens to supply food at moderate charges to 

 households where the housewife should not be 

 at work, and any such plan might be supple- 

 mented by a staff of cook-charwomen who could 

 actually work so many hours a day in the house 

 for a small fee. These are only passing sugges- 

 tions and space does not permit me to develop 

 them here. But it is a most important question 

 affecting not only the mother, but the death- 

 rate among infants and the standard of health 

 of those who survive. 



Then, as affecting the health of millions of 

 our people, there is the housing question, which 

 in turn hangs on the land question ; cheap land 



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