The Dominion. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1942. PUBLIC OPINION AND MORAL REFORM

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 292, 8 September 1942, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1942. PUBLIC OPINION AND MORAL REFORM

The mass meeting of citizens at Christchurch last weekend is only one of many recent signs of an awakening of the public conscience to the need for a moral reformation in New Zealand. How this reformation is to be accomplished must depend very largely upon the strength of public opinion. Some of the requirements insisted upon in the resolutions that were adopted by the meeting would necessarily involve legislative action, even changes in present Government policy. As the only way in which public opinion can be really effective in achieving community reforms is by growing and insistent pressure upon its representatives in Parliament, persevering effort will be demanded of those who have taken up the task of making moral lehabilitation an urgent national question. . There is every reason for believing that the Christchurch meeting was the expression and symptom of a deep-seated and ramifying conviction throughout the country that a systematic and sincere effort must be made to check the insidious spread of moral decadence. As one speaker declared, in seconding the main resolution caumg for Government action, the motion had not been framed by killjoys or “meddling moralists,” but was the outcome of the deliberations ot a committee of responsible citizens. The need for reformative measures has been in disturbing evidence over a considerable period, reaching back well before the war, and has been especially marked in the great increase in juvenile delinquency and immoral precocity. It has been said that people cannot be made virtuous by Acts of Parliament, but Government policy may place obstacles in the way of reformative effort when the aim should be to further that effort. The problem of moral rehabilitation demands for its solution the kind of inspiration which can best be drawn from a revival of religious feeling, fostered by systematic teaching to young people ot ethical principles in their true spiritual setting. The early inhibitions thus implanted in youthful minds will not easily be eradicated, as many adults of the older generation can readily testify from their own experience. •» , The social evils now prevalent are part of the penalty community has to pay for the neglect of this teaching, and it is part of the remedy for them that this neglect should no longer continue. Other remedial measures'consist in a better understanding of the responsibilities of parentship, of the immense influence of environment and associations upon youthful minds, and of .the value of stiict disciplinary treatment as a salutary check upon delinquent tendencies. All this has been repeatedly stressed in the past, in comments from the Bench and in warnings by those whose duties bring them mto close contact with social problems. But the public in general must realize that if our community life is to be purged, of the evils which are sapping the nation’s social fibre and virility, its voice must also be raised in emphatic protest and energetic demands for action, lhe Christchurch meeting is therefore an encouraging augury