SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1901. RESPONSIBILITIES EVADED. The State as a Corrective Parent.

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 59, 17 August 1901, Page 8

SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1901. RESPONSIBILITIES EVADED. The State as a Corrective Parent.

THE State, recognising that the children of to-day are to be the citizens of to-morrow, have properly taken steps to minimise the evil resultant on the un-cared-for condition of a too large proportion of the children of the colony. The State, by adjusting the hours withm which children may appear in public unprotected is, although doing its best to cope with an evil, still feeding the apathy of the children's parents. • • • We certainly hail with delight any measure that has for its object the lessening of the childish depravity known to exist m lesser or greater degrees throughout the colony, but it may be argued that the question should be approached through the root and not by the branches. Youth, when manhood or womanhood awakes in it, naturally, unless sternly deterred, seeks the dissipations and alleged delights of the adult existence. It is certainly evident that m New Zealand the corrective discipline of a great many parents is not sufficient to deter their children from the pursuit of doubtful pleasure. • • • The Government believes that for the benefit of the future generations it is better to allege that children found in the streets after a specified hour are there for no good purpose, unless accompanied by responsible adults. The parents who allow their children to parade the streets after nine o'clock at night are accessories in any evil they may commit. They are as much a social nuisance as the children to whom they give the license of their apathetic consent They make it necessary for the police to perform duties that they themselves, by reason of their parentage, should be obliged to perform, and are, in all respects, transgressors of moral law. • • • Supposing a child, under the statutory age at which a person may be allowed nocturnal freedom, is found in the streets after the time laid down for it to be indoors and is taken there by a policeman The policeman has a moral grievance against the parent for giving unnecessary

trouble. The child is the least to blame. Parents should certainly be compelled to exercise their authority m the moral upbringing of their offspring. If careless parents find that thenchildren will be delivered sound and whole by the police, without any exertion of their own, they will, of couise, still further evade their responsibilities If, on the other hand, they were required to assist the law by exerting compulsory control over their children, the objects of the practical legislation would be more apparent. Under the present form of protection to children, the child may be duly handed over to its parents' care after the evil, whatever form it may take, has been done. If that parent understood that the fact of releasing his child would call down punishment on himself, he would be more careful of its reputation, if only from selfish motives. The freedom which colonials so revel in may go too far. If it is a freedom that undermines the morality of the community, let us have less of it. No measures are too stern in dealing with any possible increase m juvenile immorality, and the reforms, to bear fruit, must be made around the root. Our statistics show that we are no worse than any of our neighbours, and rather better than most, but recent events point to the fact that we are slowly losing ground. The subject is of" the gravest importance, and one that we may reasonably hope will have the careful consideration of all persons anxious for the wellbeing of the country.