The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1912. "GOD'S FOOLS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 279, 22 May 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1912. "GOD'S FOOLS.

It is a curious but intensely suggestive I title that the Dutch give to those who are mentally deficient. "God's fools" they call tliem in all reverence and in all respect, realising that their deficiencies are not of their own making, but are part of the highest eternal mystery and wisdom. Mr. Maarten Maartens, j in his novel bearing that significant title, I has traced the pitiful life of "one of these little ones" from the cradle to the j grave, with almost painful fidelity; and w*hile the book is not happy reading it is extraordinarily immersing and instructive. Of course, the problem of effectively dealing with those who are weak in mental equipment is one that has puzzled the sociologist for many years. The allotment of individual and State responsibility is a difficult one to determine, for there are so many degrees of deficiency and so many contributory surroundings that no two cases very often are met by the same treatment. Although, happily, most of these unfortunates are not in a position to criticise any scheme of classification, it seema hardly the ideal system to confine them in wards, in hard and fast classes, in huge buildings that shame even our gaols, But in a new country, at any rate, the humanitarian has not, so far, been able to evolve a better system. For this reason the cabled statement that the British Government is about to introduce a Mental Deficiency Bill will be read with interest. The character of the measure is not very definitely indicated in the cablegram, beyond the statement that it will provide for the detention of the feeble-minded in homes and prohibits the intermarriage of deficients. We should gather from this that the Bill is intended to deal not with cases of complete mania, but rather with those hopeless floating hundreds who are too deficient in intellect to help themselves, and yet not lacking enough in wits to make them a physical danger to the community or suitable inmates for the asylums. It would really seem as if a judicious segregation of these unfortunate fellow-beings in cottage homes, preferably in the country, would be of more value than their confinement in more prison-like surroundings. There are plenty of ways in which their halfwits could be made useful and their bodies kept in that condition of sanity that has been denied their minds, and which would let at least a little ray of sunshine into the dark places of their intellects. But by far the most important provision of the Bill is that which forbids the intermarriage of defectives. This suggestion, of course, is an extremely wise and proper one, although it may be found difficult to always enforce it. It will be hailed, too, by the Marriage Reform League as a step in the direction of securing an amendment in the Mar-

riagc Act, in the direction of making a doctor's certificate as necessary as a license in the contraction of any marriage whatever. In some of the Continental countries, notably in Germany, there is a much stricter supervision of this branch of "unionism" than prevails in our own 1 'iid, but of course this digression opens up a problem which is merely a corollary to the one under discussion. If the race is to be kept clean the procreation of the unfit must be stopped at every available point, and if we begin with the mentally deficient we may very well proceed to the confirmed criminal next, before advancing to consider the further "culling" of the human race. The details of the new Bill will be awaited with general interest, for unfortunately the subject with which it deals is one of world-wide prevalence.