The Daily News. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10. THE UNFIT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 181, 10 November 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10. THE UNFIT.

Now that New Zealand has a number of devoted eugenists, whose influence may have the effect of forcing the people to examine the truths they teach, it is interesting to note that the elimination of the unfit is a question that is occupying statesmen, medical men and philanthropists in the older countries. One notable feature is that the Church in Britain is seriously discussing the great problem. The Church, Congress that was lately held at Cambridge discussed as its chief subject '"Heredity and social responsibility," Discussions of such a kind were inevitable when the recent Royal Commission pointed out that in England and Wales there were 270,000 mental defectives —nearly one to every one hundred of the population. The Royal Commission recommended that local bodies should have power to place mentally defective people under control, and to prevent them from reproducing themselves. At -the Church Congress, Mrs. Pinsent, who had sat as a member of the Commission, said that such a system would at once reduce crime, drunkenness and pauperism, and would be an initial step in recognition of the truth that a nation must net ignore the great forces of heredity. She advocated first the gradual creation of a living faith in the paramount duty of fatherhood and motherhood, and secondly, the giving of direct State encouragement to the reproduction of the better stocks. At present, she said, we were encouraging the degenerate to perpetuate themselves at the expense of the desirable citizens, who were rated and taxed to supply the degenerates with facilities for breeding. This is a truth which is as true of any part of the Empire as of England and Wales. The opinions of the sentimental who have no contact with or experience of the feeble-minded is not valuable, and this class places handicaps in the way of reform. Dr. G. E. Shuttleworth, consulting physician to the Royal Albert Institution for the Feeble-minded at Lancaster, said that all efforts to provide for feeble-minded children were impeded by lack of the aid of the State and of public bodies. That is in effect a statement that the State would rather reap the awful consequences of a constantly augmented proportion of unfit than get to the root of the matter at once. This expert asserted that modern science vied with Christian philanthropy in thwarting Nature's arrangements to eliminate the unfit at an early age, and that the State, by discouraging imprudent marriages and absolutely barring those of persons of proved feeble-mindedness, might at least .diminish the production in the future of feeble-minded children. The only effectual method of humanely compassing this seemed to be segregation in industrial colonies apart from the ordinary community. Until recent years it was "bad form" to discuss in public matters that require such plainness of expression. In New Zealand we have, as has been very definitely illustrated lately, a too large proportion of feeble-minded folk. It is more difficult to deal with the problem of the individual unfit here than at Home, for it is often impossible to trace the family history of individuals in a new country. At this Cambridge Conference experts showed that feebleness of intellect had been traced back five or six generations, in proof, of course, that segregation of such folk five generations ago would have saved Britain from an enormous increase of the unfit who now present such an awful problem—so awful, indeed, that the State does not know where to begin. One of the most striking contentions at this Church Congress was that State altruism had helped the increase of the unfit. That is to say, the State has aimed to improve the environment of the poorer classes, among whom are found the largest proportion of unfit. Without the aid of science and State Nature simply wipes out a large proportion of the unfit in the earlier stages of their lives. Science has fought Nature and registered some feeble wins. Mrs. Pinsent, in her very striking contribution to the debate at Cambridge, showed that good, efficient citizens were being heavily rated to provide training and ultimate support for degenerate families, and the result was that good citizens were led to limit the number of their children, and also the educational opportunities they could afford them—a contention that cannot be denied in New Zealand any more than it can be denied in England. The Bishop of Ripon, who presided at the Congress, deprecated the decrease in the British birthrate, but one is afraid deprecation won't increase it. He said:

t If the decline in our birthrate continued, a day must come when the population would be stationary. A nation was not exempted from tlie law of the survival of the fittest, and the fittest nation would be that which begot thp largest number of active, vigorous, intelligent, high-minded sons and daughters. Marriage among the unfit ought to be illegal: the diseased, the feeble-minded, the alcoholic, and the tuberculous ought not to marry. Those incapable of selfrestraint should be restrained bv the State.

There are difficulties. A local body having to decide the fitness or unfitness of candidates for matrimony would face a very grave responsibility to segregate the families of the proved unfit would be scientifically unsound, for it does not invariably follow that "like produces like." It is certain that Britain will rush into the system that is likely to be harsh on sections of the King's subjects, and it seems likely that in the Home Land and in the dominions enthusiastic study must be still undertaken before definite State action is taken in dealing with the proved or suppositious unfit.