THE DOMINION. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1912. EUGENICS AND LEGISLATION.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1579, 24 October 1912, Page 4

THE DOMINION. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1912. EUGENICS AND LEGISLATION.

'A very remarkable Bill before the House of Commons of which little is known here is the Mental Deficiency Bill—an extremely drastic measure of what we can call "practical eugenics." The Bill has been received with much favour in the House of Commons—the second reading was carried by a majority of 223, the Nationalists abstaining from voting—but some of its provisions are being vigorously opposed in the secular and religious press. What is being specially objected to is the provision of "segregation" for the feeble-minded and mentally although very strong opposition is being offered to certain arbitrary and dangerous innovations in court procedure and curtailments of existing civil rights, not to mention some extraordinary defects of draughtsmanship. The whole Bill should be taken as a warning against the hurried translation of eugenist theories into statute law. "Defectives within the meaning of the Act" arc classified as (1) Idiots, (2) Imbeciles, (3) Feeble-minded Persons, (4) Moral Imbeciles, (5) Mentally Infirm Persons. "Moral imbeciles" are defined as "persons who from.. an early age display some mental defect coupled with_ strong vicious or criminal pro-1 l tensities on. \\\uc\y punisVimcnt Inas ///t(/e or no deterrent effect"— a da- ( * iiv/M mafic /nor,?/ /m//ccf/c3 of t/ie i i persons" tire defined as those "who, wi-j be ca.-pn.VAe oi ewmftg tticvt \\n-' I ing in favourable circumstances, but, are incapable through mental defect I I existing irom birth or from an early age (1) of competing on equal terms with their normal fellows; or (2) of managing themselves and their affairs with ordinary prudence." It ■did not require Professor Karl I Pearson to point out, as be pointed out exceedingly well, that this defmi- | tion is no definition at all. In the House of Commons Sir Frederick Banbury showed its absurdity by mentioning that Richard Cobden, under such a law, would have been segregated. What the opponents of the Bill regard as the crowning evil of the Bill is the provision that persons who are declared to be feeble-minded shall be segregated, which is, imprisoned for life. The attack upon this proposal has come from three points—it is objected to on religious grounds, on purely human grounds, and on social and legal grounds. j.Leaving.the religious objections untouched, we can state briefly the human objections by quoting a passage from_ an open letter addressed to the Bishop of Exeter by Sir Arthur Quiller Couch, He speaks of "the experiments on' the poor" which are provided for in the 'Bill, and adds:

I wonder if you at all realise tho strength of the mania, that has taken hold of these cugenists or lo what fantastic cruelties it can persuade them. No? . . . Then courage, my lord! Pick up your pastoral stall', and we will wade through a yet deeper and filthier stream. Some little while ago the Chief Magistrate of the most populous town in your diocese seriously proposed , that children of weak intellect should be put to n painless death. (It was kind of him to mako it painless!) Will you harden your face while I hold for a moment that sii<kosliou steadily up to your nostrils? . . .

Yes, my lord, it will do yon pod in the end. . . . Bethink you (it is painfully known to us, who have to deal with theso 'cases' on a County Education Committee) that a mother clings passionately to her child who is born 'afflicted,' and more passionately as a rule to the idiot child than to tho deaf or the dumb. Next bethink that the 'deficiency' of few children, or none, can be determined—even for purposes of a certificate—until the mother lias suckled it, weaned it, nnd (God knows with what alternations of hone and woe) learnt, as love only can teach, (o shield its helplessness by a thousand sweet devices. Lastly, bethink yon of a policeman or an 'inspector' of some sori calling on that mother and demanding, 'Your child is weak-minded. Hand it to me. please, that I may lead it away and kill it (as proposed by a late Chief Magistrate of Plymouth), or that I may imprison it for life (as, your consent not asked, T am authorised to do bv Act of Parliament which may be cited as tho Mental Deficiency Act, 1012).' '*.

But the argument which may perhaps weigh more with politicians, if it will weigh with them at all, is this :■ that "the life-imprisonment of persons not proved to be guilty is a new and ominous feature in English life. One section of the Bill gives the Home Secretary power, almost, unfettered, to command the segregation of anybody. To the faithful friends of the old Liberal tradition in England this violation of the liberty of the subject appears as nothing less than appalling, especially when it comes from a Government calling itself Liberal. The opponents of the Bill are bv no means opponents of the "eugenic' 1 idea, They have uo Quarrel, they

admit, with "a eugenics which will merely be a harmless science of good mating and begetting." They point out, however, that the science of eugenics is in the embryonic stage, and that even its fads are uncertain. This is allowed in the very report (of the lloyal Commission on the Feeble-minded) upon which the Bill purports to he based, for in the report it is said: "It will he seen that, owing to the absence of necessary statistics an absolutely conclusive reply, based on facts alone, cannot be given to the question whether a parent or parents who are mentally defective are much more likely to have mentally-defective children than are mentally normal parents.'' The study of eugenics is a commendable pursuit, and, if pursued seriously and with scrupulous care for facts and safe reasoning, contains the promise of much good. But it is' too early, by many years, to think of "eugenist". legislation and to lay rough hands, without further parley, on the human, religious, social and legal traditions, institutions and establishments imperilled by the English Bill. This all wise and scrupulous cngenists should admit.