PREVENTIVE CHARITY [To the Editor. of THE SPECTATOR.] 1.
SIR,—Lord Nuffield's frequent, generous, and- munificent gifts can hardly be too greatly praised, and we owe, nationally, very great thanks to him. It may appear to ill become one, especially a medical man, to find the least fault with such benevolence. But these princely. gifts have been mostly given to prosper medical research. What. is ibis .research for ? Chiefly. to discover the cure of the various ailments mankind suffers from, their causation, and, to a certain extent, their prevention. The last of these is, or should be, the real chief point. Now, who form, probably, the bullg of the sick, especially in our free hospitals and institutions, who arc to profit by their research ? Undoubtedly they are largely those who, in their early years, have suffered privation and want, the C3 members of the community, usually as the results of their parents' poverty, sometimes of their deliberate neglect and cruelty, sometimes from misfortunes of other kinds. How can such children be expected, either in childhood or later years, to have the stamina to withstand infection and illness, or to have the good teeth so necessary for health even if they had the food, or.to blossom into Al members of the Communiti'.0 Abolish these root-causes, and mach of the need of Medical research would automatically disappear, not to mentiaa, the'
fact that a vast amount of crippledom, ill-health, and general misery and wretchedness, especially amongst infants and
children, would be abolished. Ho* is it that'such a large percentage of the lads who offer as recruits-have to be rejected
as physically unfit? • • .
If any substantiation of these 'remarks is required,- lobk at the excellent work done by such noble institutions' as Dr.
Barnardo's Homes, the various Lord. Shaftesbury institutions, and other similar societies which might be mentioned, who
find so many cases requiring relief in their early years. These societies cost the State—in other words the taxpayer— nothing, do an immense work in turning C3 children (or C10 they might be termed if the grading of many of them were carried down to their depths), into Al's, and could even do vastly more if they had the ,means, but are in a perennial state of having to spend half their energies in seeking to make ends meet : and it in noteworthy that the very poorest, who know and realise what good -is achieved, contribute their mites—which total to a large sum—to help the work. Here is machinery ready to hand, costing, as already noted, the taxpayer nothing, but, on the other hand, whose benefactions largely help to benefit them, by reducing the numbers of cripples, and sick, dr.c., who would otherwise be a charge to the State.
It is to be hoped, therefore, that all who follow Lord Nuffield's generous example will see their way to include these excellent preventive institutions in their benefactions for the reasons given above.
Surely it must be a vastly greater satisfaction to wealthy persons to spend most of their wealth, and to see the good accruing from it, during their lifetime, than merely to hoard it up and leave it to others, who, sometimes at any rate, squander and spend it foolishly.7-I am, are., [This letter was, of course, written before the announcement of Lord Nuffield's latest gift to the Special Areas.—En. The Spectator.]
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