DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 42, 15 August 1894, Page 2

DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL.

TO THE 'EDITOR OF THE STAR. [Letter No 2.] Fir, — Who wants Divorce made easy? . ; I have discussed politics with my friend the late >ir Harry Atkinson on many occasions, I have done the same with many members of the Upper House, with many members of the House of Representatives, wilff settlers—big and little— of New Zealand from Invercargill to New Plymouth, with merchants, storekeepers, and laborers, and I have never heard from these people any desire -to make Divorce easy, but I have heard from the lips of some of the same class as the Hon. Mr Bigg, shallow, and flippant language in regard to the bonds of matrimony. They scoffed at marriage. These men I . found had got their ideas from Socialistic Works. They acknowledged no Supreme; Being but themselves and their own sensual natures, they had no love and venera- . tion for their parents, they bad no affection for brothers or sisters, in-' short they were determined to do as little work as possible, to get as much money as the could squeeze out of the Government or their employers, and to spend their leisure in riotous living. Shall we have Divorce made easy for this kind of people? Shall we take the first step towards thai doctrine advocated in so many Socialistic Works, viz , Free love? The Socialist who denies the existence of a Supreme Being invariably advocates "getting the Divorce Laws made very, easy, as the first step, and then with a fiendish chuckle says it will be a very easy matter to wipe out marriage altogether. Fathers and mothers with young families growing up, consider this question well, and act ere it is too late. Facili* est dcscensiis. We have heard a great deal of late years about New Zealand for New Zealanders, and about building up ?a noble nation in these lands,' but wie cannot do this without morality; and to be a moral nation the sanctity of the marriage tie must be well guarded. The history of almost every, nation of note iv days long gone past may be sumtned up thus ;— " , Ist, Youth: poor, struggling, brave, self-denying. 2nd, Middle age: strong, fairly wealthy, still brave, still energetic, moral. • ■■■; 3rd, Wealthy, luxurious, immoral, speedy decay, or overthrow by a more moral people. i Let us apply the torch of ihvesti- ; gation to the cause of the decline of the Roman empire. We find that at the time of Rome's greatest prosperity that the demagogue;, as is the instinct of their kind, made political capital by attacking industrial capital. They lowered the rate of interest, prohibited interest, and often attempted the abolition of debts. Draper, in his . •• Intellectual DeJ velopment of Europe," p. 253: ' says, "The accumulation of power, and wealth gave rise to a, universal depravity. Law ceased to be of any value. The social fabric was a festering mass of rottenness. The city was a hell. No crime that the annals of human wickedness can show was lett unperpetrated — reniorseles murders j the betrayal of parents, husbands, wives, and friends ; poisoning reduced to a system ; adultery degenerating into incests j and crimes that cannot be written. Women of the higher classes were so lascivious, depraved, and dangerous, that men could not be compelled to contract matrimony with them • marriages were displaced by ' concubinage." Then we find in the time of Caesar the Government had to interfere and put a premium on marriage. We find "' that the higher classes on all sides exhibited a total extinction of moral principle ; the lower classes , were practically atheists. ' Tacitus says: The holy ceremonies of religion were violated j_ adultery reigning without control." . And what was the result?* * ( Rome for Empire far renowned " was crushed by a horde of savages. Surely our legislators, many of them husbands, fathers of families, and honorable moral men, will . not play into . the hands of atheistical, unprincipled. Socialists ! I am, etc., George Wilks. Feilding, August 14th, 1894.