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Hokitika Guardian, 18 October 1922, Page 2

The thought for the times to-day reveals a. changed state of affairs in the political world since 1911, when Mr Massey and his myrmidons used to rave on the platform about,the indebtedness of the country under the Liberal regime a little more than a decade ago. The comparative figures then and now are given in the thought and they certainly are arresting. It was life custom then for the so-call-ed Reformers to hold up their hands in horror at the indebtedness of the country and the awful taxation which would have to l;e imposed to redeem it I II e recall how a local advocate of lUL.rtn used to predict that before long tlic peoples’ tombstone would be taxed! That prophecy lias actually come true , under Reform, memorials lor soldiers being made liable ior customs duty but owing to the outcry made the duty oharged- it has been promised is to be remitted. - The wheels grind slowly 1 1 times, but the machine arrives in time, and in the matter of indebtedness and the imposition of taxation, Reform has gone to the very limit. A halt is being called by dive necessity, hecauke at the latest figures given out by Mr Massey, nearly a million of the last land and income taxation is unpaid—the people being unable to meet the demands. The financial levelntions under Reform administration are something for the people to ponder over before the general election oolites round. There are evidences of maladministration in nil directions and the people me paying all the time for the extravagances of the Government.

The address delivered at the Town Hall on Monday night under the auspices of the Social Hygiene Society of Canterbury, touched on a subject, as was rightly said, of the greatest social importance. Tito matter of social purity and sex hygiene touches not only the life of the individual but also that of the human rare. The war period with its excesses brought the subject prominently to the forefront. For some reason, arising in a measure from the neglect of the subject previously. social diseases became more rampant, and tremendous evil must have been done, which it will take years in the history of the nation to eradicate. The wisdom of earlier and positive instructions as regards sex facts became strikingly apparent, and the Society which is working away quietly in Chiistchureh should he encouraged in its work to make the subject more widely known, ami more acceptable in homes. A knowledge of the physiological laws of life is of importance to the rising generation so that they may he safeguarded us they go out into the world. Ignorance in respect to such matters often carries disaster in J its train, and the inculcation of purity in life cannot be too strongly emphasised from the school ago onward. There should not b? the affected modesty there is about the subject really. That condition of pritdeney has grown tip from false modesty, for the subject strikes at the vitality of the nations, and wider and wider instruction should he given instead of secrecy and suppression.