SOCIAL HYGIENE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 37, 7 November 1917, Page 8

SOCIAL HYGIENE

l aw to be energetically enforced

WOMEN'S LETTER TO MINISTER

The Minister of Internal Affairs has received from Mrs. Averill, wife of the Bishop, of Auckland, rind president of tbo Mothers' Union of the Auckland Diocese, the following letter relating to the Social Hygiene Act passed in the session just closed:— "I am writing on behalf of our Central Council of the Mothers' Union in tho Auckland Diocese. At a full meeting of members in council it was decided to tender you our grateful thanks for your Bill ro venereal disease, and to press for the sotting up of local advisory boards as soon as possible. "We beg to suggest the issue of health certificates to men and women before marriage' tnkes place, and that literature dealing with the first symptoms and treatment of this disease should be issued to all organisations of women, and to all teachers throughout the Dominion, and to press also the necessity of night and free clinics in each centre."

The letter is counter-signed by the Bishop of Auckland. In answer to inquiries the Minister made thS following statement on the subject:—"The portion of the Bill relating to the setting up of local advisory boards was cut out, but power is taken for the Minister to encourage the establishment of hygienic associations, and this vill be done in all the principal centres. All the regulations necessary for .bringing the entire Bill into operation are now being prepared, and very shortly the main clauses of the Act will be mode operative. The facilities provided for the free treatment of venereal dwinse ■will be notified by rosters to be displayed in every itost office and railway station in the country. Now *hat the I'jll has been passed into law it is our intenti >n to administer it v ith i icour, and it is hoped that. 6ome assistance will be given to' the authorities in the fight with the 'red plague."'