THE NEW WORLD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2115, 15 April 1920, Page 1

THE NEW WORLD.

There whs some straight speaking by Mr W. L. George, the well-known publicist, at a League of Youth meeting recently, states a London exchange. Speaking on morals and the New World, he said the best definition of morality was that it was the quest of the most agreeable. “People do not like lying, cheating, - or forging.”

Crime went in waves; the more crime there was, the more there would be. “Theft,” he added, “is largely a matter of example, and is a result of conditions bound up in the capitalist State. There is every evidence to-day that if you want money, you do not earn it. You have to ‘bag’ it. It doesn’t matter whether it is done with jemmies or with shares. It is absolutely futile to go on treating murderers and thieves as we do. We have tried everything, from branding with hot irons to breaking on the wheel, but it still goes on. All punishment is buncombe. We must not look at it as a question of.,good .and. evil,'but of sick and we'll.” . Speaking on the sex question, Mr George said there was no increase in: irregular unions, nor in prostitution in the Xew

World. There was simply more exposure and more shamelessness. At the time the last medical officer’s report was issued there were 20,005 people in London living' five in a room. The living-in system was also responsible, and the centre of the whole question was in wages.