21 NOVEMBER 1931, Page 50

Sir George Newman has shown that the average physique of

children in elementary schools on a whole is slightly better than it was a few years ago. Improved environment is bound to result in improved appearances—for a time. The children of the poor are better fed, better clothed and better housed now than ever before. But that this cannot continue indefinitely we are just beginning to-find out.-. By burning a candle at both ends we may certainly get a better light— for a time. Socialistic legislation, by consistently taking from the more efficient, thus limiting their means, and so necessarily their families, too, while spoon-feeding the less efficient and- giving them extra money for each child they produce (a privilege the workers do not with us enjoy as they do in France), must of necessity produce racial decay in the long run.—C. WICKSTEED ARMSTRONG.