The Daily News. SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1912. MORAL DEGENERATES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 83, 24 August 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1912. MORAL DEGENERATES.

Although hardly a day passes without the newspapers chronicling some pitiable J case of moral degeneracy, and although the judges of the Supreme Court have continually commented from the Bench ] upon its undue prevalence in New Zea- | land, there has been little organised effort in the country to cope effectually with the evil. But the public conscience , could not always remain immune to j these appeals or unconscious of the j dreadful daily illustrations. Various , hospital boards in the Dominion have I been seriously considering the subject! on a remit from the Wallace and Fiord j Board recommending that the Government should be called upon to provide an institution for the compulsory detention of morally defeceive girls and women, and the proposal was heartily supported on Monday by the Taranaki Board. The Board, indeed, very wisely went further, and demanded that the same, or some other, provision should be made in the case of male degenerates, i who are quite as grave a danger when at large in the community. Ultimately the Board unanimously carried the following resolution: "That in view of the increasing burden of maintaining degenerates and their offspring, and in view of the danger to the community both from a moral and physiological point of view, this Board affirms the necessity of founding an institution, with powers of detention, for persons of feeble character, whose proclivities are a source of danger to the community, both from a physiological and moral point of view."

There are not wanting people who are prepared to go even further in the case of the male degenerate,, and who demand that in the case of habitual offenders the services of the surgeon should be invoked, and this drastic principle has, after all, much to recommend it. Civilisation can even yet learn something from> the primitive races, and there are ample precedents in history where nations have hecn saved from premature decay hy the absolute destruction of the unfit. We 'have no intention of suggesting that the lame, and the halt, and the blind, and the physically unfit should be put out of the way, for the moral sense of the world has progressed long past the possibility of such a scheme, but moral degeneracy is a disease so widely spread in the community that it simply must be dealt with as we should deal with cancer or with any other virulent plague. These offenders are oftener more sinned against than sinning, but this mere fact does not make them less a menace to the health of the country. The uncontradicted statement that in at least one province of the South Island hundreds of girls of tender age passed through the hospitals as a result of being tampered with by degenerates, is quite ia sufficient illustration of the lengths of depravity to which many men have fallen, and of the need for urgent and drastic action. It is fair to assume

that what is happening in one part of C the country is happening in others, and J aa not one tithe of the cases ever come* before the public eye, it is evident that the cry for protection is not one of "Wolf! Wolf!" We confine our habitual drunkards and Our mentally unsound in homes and asylums, and their offences are at least mostly offences against themselves and not of a character which necessarily spells their perpetuation in the species. The sin of degeneracy is a much graver menace, not only to the individual but to the nation. We hope that now the question has been seriously taken in hand it will not be allowed to drop until some effective steps have been taken to remove this plague spot from the body politic.