HEALTH AND MORALS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 170, 12 April 1919, Page 11

HEALTH AND MORALS

11 EN ACE OK THE STREETS.

In liis prcfsico (o the annual report o( the National Council of l'ublic Morals, recently published, Ihe Hishop of Uirmingham,. (lie president of the council, urges thai the young men ami woman on tlin threshold of adult lifn should be warned of danger, shown the best, and stired lo higher ideals. It was high time, ho says, that Ihe jiation realised llial: health was n prime necessary for usefulness. That the council had assisted';o form public opinion in the demand for an immediate setting up of a Ministry of Health could not bo denied. Held rinu to the falling birth-rate, the llishop writes:—

"So long as the Naval or Army officer, the clergyman, the average cleric, the ordinary middle-class employeo are badly paid, they will iiot have many children, nnd who-will blame them? ft is criminal follv to half starve the parents and then start .crusades for large families. 'The very life of ihe State upon tin! number and finality of its children. Councils such as our- works in vain unless the State accepts its full responsibilities."

The report itself divides the work .of Hie. council into n series af five campaigns. . The first of these. deals with Tiic-c regeneration, tho Ministry- of Her,lth. the international campaign, nnd the moral . reconstruction of society. Tlie problems, stales the report, with which tlie council has grappled are those of health and morn Is, which cannot bo divorced: of tlie personal and social relation of the eexes, wliicli hnvc been revolutionised by tho war; of the alarming prevalence of the highly infectious, deadly. ami sterilising venereal diseases, which threaten to become epidemic now the war is over; of the persistence of illegitimacy, which in spite of nil rescue work does not decrease, and of. the housing of the people, thousands of whom live in pigsties. _ ' '{'lie Second campaign is largely devoted lo sex education and marriage. The council has pressed more and more for the organised and cllieicut care of adolescents, ami i'o\v urges the introduction of be 'i education into schools. Dealing with tho third campaign against venereal disease, the report says that Captain Gilv .soii's investigations show 708 out- of 981 eases of gonorrhoea to have been infected bv "amateur" women, and 1281 out of 22118 eases syphillis; Li two other investigations it was found that out of 32") eases of syphillis 271 were the.result of "amateur'- infection,, nnd- 321 out of 160. In spite of .all., that is being! done,-says the report, to combat -venereal' disease, tlie {'rightfulness of the menace to innocrnt women find children nnd to the enlire nation is underestimated: The fourth campaign deals with ' the kinoiun.' ami all. investigation into tho proposed lei noma campaign t his year in schools and colleges. Experts from the Board of Education will assist the couneil - , .Willi reference, to solicitation on the streets the report again refers to the great' number of "amateur" prostitutes, and declares them to be a greater source oi venereal infection.- 11 .claims - tnat newspaper exposures by American visitors were exaggerated, but continues:— .. "The. tale-of., the streets •cur'"!? the war will never be told. How • .many have gone down corrupted for life must lis unknown., Jiut, slinking liberal allowances for.All exaggeration, tho number' is. according lo the most rescue-' workers, anpalling. ' When will tho. Church throw off its indifference and concentrate upon saving the adolescents, beforo Ihev come within sight of the not. ol" vice?" Next year there is to-be a great morals campaign in Wales.in conjunction with the Citizens' Union of. Cardiff, and it is also honed to hold at some future date a ioiuf confereuce with the French oSsociaies on tlie birth-rate, question. . .