MENACE OF THE DEGENERATE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 415, 25 July 1928, Page 7

MENACE OF THE DEGENERATE

Mental Defectives Bill Criticised minister of health seeks solution (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. “IF better ways of achieving some of the results can be 1 suggested, I am prepared to consider them,” said the Hon. j. A. Young, Minister of Health, answering criticism of the Mental Defectives Amendment Bill, which he defended after it had been subjected to severe criticism by several speakers in the House of Representatives. At one stage of the evening, after Mr. H. E. Holland, Mr. W. D. Lysnar and Mr. H. G. R. Mason had, without qualification, denounced the main terms of the Bill, and Mr. R. W. Smith had suggested that its final adoption should be deferred until next year, it looked as though the Bill did not have a friend in the world.

Mr. H. Holland, Christchurch North, rose, however, to champion its provisions, which, he said, he “heavily approved.” The main burden of the criticism was that the sterilisation clauses were too dangerous and registration was unnecessary, and suggested that the scope of classifications was too wide. Mr. H. E. Holland said that the register of mental defectives would be easy to get on to but hard to get off. Sterilisation would not check the occurrence of mental defectives in the community but would raise the danger of the dissemination of venereal disease, by sterilised women, who would be the easy prey of unscrupulous men.

ditions in which children were born and brought up. In this respect he quoted what was being done in Denmark, where they had special classes and special schools for backward children. The Minister of Health, the Hon. J. A. Young: They have sterilisation in Denmark.

heredity and environment Quoting authorities to show that mental defectives were as often the children of normal parents as of degenerates, he argued that much of what was ascribed to heredity was really the result of wrong environment. Speaking as a layman he preferred segregation to sterilisation, and considering the large part environment played in the development of children, he urged the House to turn its attention to improving the con-

Mr. Holland replied that he was at the moment discussing the conditions under which children were being brought up. He urged the Minister to use whatever influence he had with the Government to see that this Bill was not translated into law until there had been the fullest inquiry into all aspects of the question. Mr. Lysnar raised a new issue in claiming that committal to asylums should always be a judicial responsibility. At present he contended it was too easy to get people committed. He believed that there were many in the Dominion asylums who should not be there. DRASTIC AND DANGEROUS Mr. E. J. Howard also attacked the Bill, stating that it was too drastic and dangerous, in fact so much so that he hardly believed the Minister seriously intended to place the legislation on the Statute Book in its present form.

If evidence were tendered to an expert committee he was confident a better Bill would emerge. Mr. Young in reply said that much of the outside criticisms had been more helpful than that given inside the House. He believed the position was that the Bill had been generally misunderstood. It was an honest effort to solve the problem, an effort based on advice tendered by competent men. The Bill aimed at providing institutions where the individual characters of patients could be studied. At present there "were people in gaols, or in mental asylums, who should not be in either but in a special institution.

Concerning sterilisation, Mr. Young said that it was not expected that the proposed surgical operations would lessen the incidence of mental disease at once. Sherilisation was only a minor phase of the general scheme. Mr. H. E. Holland: Do you intend to stand by the sterilisation clauses? Mr. Young: I would not like to say at this stage. I would like it to go through. If we don’t get it now we’ll get it at some later period. The Bill was read a second time and referred to the Health Committee. The House adjourned at 11.30.