Take our slums! The powers vested in the State or in local bodies for dealing with slum areas are obviously either not sufficient or not sufficiently put to use. Not, of course, that any quick or light-hearted transformation can be expected; the roots of this evil are too tortuously coiled in economies and natural selfishness. Still, just as realization of our country’s danger at the hands of Germany has produced a marvellous crop of effort and sacrifice, so realization of the equally distressing menace to the country from within should produce something similar, when patriotic attention is once more free, and time and strength at liberty, for fighting dangers at home. The housing problem desperately needs attention; but, though much can be done, good gamblers cut their losses, and the adult generation of the slums has got more or less to be cut, that greater effort may be concentrated on the children. The war has focussed attention on the need for arresting infant mortality. Good! But there is little use in saving babies if you are not going to feed them decently when they are out of swaddling clothes. A big step forward has been taken of late years towards the feeding of necessitous children, both at school and in crêches but many more steps need to be taken. If this is not a State matter, then nothing is. To neglect the nourishment of its children is at once the paltriest economy, the least sagacious policy, and the worst inhumanity of which a nation can be guilty. The old-fashioned idea that children must go hungry or be fed so as to grow up rickety because their parents (being “rotters” already) must not be rotted further is a doctrine devoid both of common sense and compassion. A nation either has a will towards a future, or it has none. If it has none, for what are we fighting this most bloody war? What does our honour matter, or our independence either? But the future of a nation is its children. As they grow up, healthy, clean, hopeful, efficient, so will our future be. As they grow up—half-fed, dirty, don’t care, and ignorant—so will Britain! If to look after the children makes worse paupers of the parents, well—let it! Have some courage. Do not be hypnotized by a word, and, grasping the shadow, lose the substance. Give the children blood in their little bodies, and hope in their little brains. Any decent parent will be the better for that; the indecent parent is a loss already, and must be cut. Working-class mothers who neglect to feed their children better than themselves are but exceptions, nor will a sounder system of State-help seriously alter the deepest instinct of human nature. The heroism of British soldiers in the trenches is no greater than the lifelong heroism of British mothers in the slums struggling against want. This is a matter that should not be left to the discretion of local bodies. Once the principle has been admitted—and who can honestly deny that it