POISON FOR PATRIOTISM
SIR,—Under stress of war we accustom ourselves to the " impossible " so steadily and persistently that only with an occasional jolt do we realise the point we have reached in acceptance.
If " direction " must govern our lives, homes, money, food, need we keep ourselves alert about what is happening to our children? Do they matter enough to stop poisoning them? Apparently not.
I write from a locality (or " zone ") where we receive daily a ration of milk known to contain the living germs of disease. Tubercle bacilli and the organisms of undulant fever have been demonstrated and their presence made known to the responsible authorities. Like the City Councillors of Hamelin, they have the matter under " active considera- tion " while the rats gnaw at the babies' cradles. The Ministry of Food has, in the main, done us so well that criticism is lulled. Altered bread, fatless meat, sweet pulp for jam, what do they matter? We are fed somehow. But, to accept poison for patriotism is another matter, if we realised it.
The Minister for Agriculture told the House this month that in four years of going round the country he found that " the cleaning up of the milk industry had not been tackled." He asked more power to do it and was subjected to a storm of angry criticism. Had he said boldly that the nation's children were being daily poisoned the Commons might have been awakened to another aspect of the case, but continuing to talk of " clean " milk reduces the subject to a mere aesthetic nicety.
Only the research people with part of the medical and nursing pro- fessions and some leading veterinarians know what is really going on. If our children mean anything to us it is we, the public, who must demand of our loaders, "Rouse up, sirs, give your brains a-racking—To find
the remedy we're lacking."—Yours, &c., ESTHER CULLING.
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