TOPICS OF THE TIME.

Hastings Standard, Issue 60, 6 July 1896, Page 2

TOPICS OF THE TIME.

Too much stress cannot well be laid upon the fact that the disclosures in Wellington and Dunedin in connection with the Chinese residences are shocking evidences, of the depravity on the one hand of some of the girls of our cities and of the beastliness of the Mongolians. It was Sir George Whitmore who said in the Legislative Council that if we were to enquire closely into the moral question as between the Chinese and ourselves the European might suffer "by comparison. We have yet to learn that the European, however degraded he may be, makes it a practice to entice girl children into the dens of the slums there to ruin them beyond hope of redemption. It is a matter for keenest regret, and indeed something even more than that, that the members of the Legislative Council did not recognise the necessity for checking the increase of Chinese in the colony; but the fact that the Upper House would not consent to an increased poll-tax does not prevent Parliament from introducing a measure that shall make it a crime, punishable by long term of imprisonment, for the Chinese to harbor young girls, or to entice them to their ruin in their shops or opium dens. The mothers of our land should call upon the Legislature to enact a measure providing for strong repressive action for tie prevention of such crimes as we know the police are now powerless to deal with.