THE KELBURN RAID

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 224, 10 June 1918, Page 6

THE KELBURN RAID

Sir—Your article on tho Kelburn raid must have caused many of your readers a pang of deep regret, in that you cwld devote so much space to a serious subject for no better purpose than to in» fiict a few vigorous kicks on a prostrate victim. New Zealand women have, for a long, timo, been content to leave their affairs in tho hands'of men, in tho optimistio belief that man would deal with his sister as with his brothers. Alas! If D however, your article serves no other purpose, it will at least demonstrate hour utterly incompetent even a thinking man is to realise tho perils that surround girls in this country under the present law, as disclosed in the Etfburn case. Your complete acquiescence in. tho evidence tendered by a polioeinan who gains promotion by convictions such as this, and your absolute disregard of all evidence for the defence, shows a lamentable absence of discrimination which can only be accounted-for.'by supposing that you did not trouble to investigate tho mat. tor from tho women's point of view. Had it been a case of man against man you would have been quick to observe tho injustice done to tho young girls whom you yourself describe as "respectable girls," who were dragged off to gaol without notice, and who were kept in a prison cell for two nights and a 'whole day on tho word of a. policeman. You would have drawn attention to the unwarranted slur throw.v on these girls after they had been diecharged. You would have gone out of your way, as fortunately our justiceloving women aro doing, to demonstrate the monstrous injustice of a sweeping away of overv word of evidenco which was opposed to tho police story. According to the Magistrate every witness was a liar, from the clover littlo lad who attended St. Patrick's Collego on a scholarship, to the lawyer, the .doctors, and the dignified father of Mrs. Griffin, whom even the insolent police officers did not dare to challenge. Sir, there is more, in this case ,than meets tho eye of tho ordinary cfbserver-moro than tho question of whether the house was a house, of ill-fame. There is a question involved which is going to shake tho very foundations of the homo.and social life. May I' hope that you will, in fairness to the' "other side,", find spaco for these few con.ments.-I -^^