10 JANUARY 1941, Page 5

Is there, I wonder, some subtle distinction between war babies

and war-babies? I was a little startled at a newspaper heading this week, declaring " We Want More War Babies," for the war babies, or war-babies, of the last war were the fruit of unhallowed unions, a soldier usually acknowledging paternity. Many of them, it is fair to say, existed rather in the imagination than in the flesh. I remember, for example, that the late Lord Cushendun, then Mr. Ronald Macneill, wrote to The Times expressing his horror that there were two thousand infants of this category. But no one else could discover them, though diligent search was made by newspaper reporters and social workers. However, what " we want " now, " we " being primarily Dr. R. A. Fisher, Professor of Eugenics in the University of London, is apparently larger normal families. I agree with Dr. Fisher in that, and also in his contention that one way to get them is a sound scheme of