THE UNBORN MILLIONS
SIR,—The main reason why desirable parents are not producing sufficient desirable children is because modern housing provides no facilities for them ; and the reason why it is thus defective is because there is no adequate domestic assistance. The lack of maids has brought into being the " labour-saving house," which has no accommodation either for maids or babies. Recently I saw through one of these houses, being prepared for a young bride and groom. It was an attractive- looking (outwardly) terrace house in a suburban district of a city, one of hundreds being built at that time, all after the same general model. The kitchen was simply a passage, so narrow that there was no room for an ordinary table ; the " table " was a flap attached to the wall by hinges, and so let down against the wall when not in use. The only means of heating and cooking was a gas-cooker, and a sink under the window was the only place for washing both dishes and clothes. The hot-water supply came from a small boiler behind a small sitting-room grate. There was no possible place for a nursery. May I ask where, in such a house, could
a baby's napkins be washed and dried, and where could all the necessary nursery operations take place? One does not keep a gas-cooker burning for hours in order to dry a baby's clothes, even supposing there was space for a pulley, which in this " kitchen " there certainly was not.
Flats, of course, are as bad, if not worse, than such terrace houses for the purposes of rearing children. •
We are all familiar with much grandiose talk about the marvellous improvements that are going to happen after the war. It will be well for our legislators to tackle first the bare facts of living and producing life. I am in a position of knowing how the men in the Forces are even now considering these subjects, for I have had officers billeted on me for months, and they tell me what their men are saying when they talk in their huts at night. They have assured me that every soldier is deter- mided that a job shall be found for him when he returns to civil life, by means of which he can support his home, his wife and family. He will not tolerate any job being given to a woman which a man is capable of performing. The men will insist that all women's war organisations be immediately disbanded, and the women returned to their natural sphere of home-making and child-rearing. One officer said to me: " If ex-soldiers walk the streets selling writing-pads after this war, while women sit in snug jobs, in offices and shops, there will be a revolution! "
Scientists tell us how dangerous it is to interfere with the balance of nature ; since man appeared on the earth the divinely ordered procedure has been for man to be the bread-winner and woman to be the home- maker. We must return to this ordinance of the Creator if our best children are to appear in the numbers we wish ; but no woman can go on producing children without adequate domestic assistance. To provide this should be the first improvement in a newly ordered world ; and the second should be, homes for babies to live and thrive in. A kitchen in such a home requires to be something more than a passage, and a good range is more essential than a gas-cooker. Let the Minister of Fuel take
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