WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 167, 2 December 1912, Page 5

WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

' FLOGGING PROPOSED. , By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. London, November 29. i The House of Lords passed the second reading of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill. Lord Haldane, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Lansdowne. supported flogging. Lord Crewe opposed this, and preferred indeterminate sentences. Lord Lytton objected to flogging, and favored the branding of male and female procureurs. Lord Alverstone favored the flogging. He had known criminals howl, even when sentenced to flogging. GREAT MASS MEETING IN LONDON. WHIPPING ADVOCATED BY BISHOP OF LONDON. London, October 7. A great meeting yesterday afternoon, which packed the Lyceum Theatre from floor to ceiling, and was representative of all the religious thought of the country, sent an urgent message to Parliament to pass the White Slave Traffic Bill with its clauses unweakened. Apart irom an impassioned protest against the horror and extent of the "traffic," the speeches fastened in particular upon two points in respect of which it was declared that the efficacy of the measure had been grievously impaired. The one concerned the amendment which gave the power of arrest without warrant of suspicious persons, not to an ordinary constable (as originally provided), but to members of the force not below the rank of sergeant, who were detailed for special duty. The second had reference to the exclusion of flats from tlie operation T>f the Bill. The keynote of the meeting was struck at the outset by the Rev. J. E. Rattenbury, who occupied the chair, and who declared, amid great cheering, that it was time that the infamous white slave traffic should come to an end in this country. He had been told, he said, by those who were qualified to express an opinion that "the condition of the traffic had neycr been worse than at the present time." The police knew all about it, but were more or less powerless, through the present state of the law, to prevent it. "We want more than the Bill," exclaimed the speaker, "but we must have the Bill, and nothing but the Bill." LONDON'S REPUTATION. Mr. Claude C. Montefiore, who spoke for the Jewish community, moved the . resolution, which stated that the meeting—representative of the churches and synagognges—was appalled at the magnitude to which traffic in young girls for immoral purposes had grown both in the export of British girls to foreign lands and the import of girls from other countries, "whereby London had become a sort of clearing house for the trade," expressed its conviction that it was urgently necessary to get the Bill passed in its original form, and without its stringent clauses being weakened by amendment. The resolution also expressed the opinion that "the so-called liberty of the subject is not for a mo mcnt to be weighed against the awful evil that the Bill is designed to eradicate." Mr. Montefiore remarked that "if certain countries in the East of Europe would make certain classes of their population as free as the corresponding people in England, there would be fewer victims of the traffic exported into this and other countries." The Rev. F. B. Meyer, speaking for the great body of Free Church opinion, denounced the amendment in regard to the power of arrest as a nefarious amendment. (Loud cheering). The police were in touch with the masses of the people, and might bo trusted. "Surely," the reverend gentleman exclaimed, "we men may be trusted to take a risk or two —for if we are clean we shall get out of it fast enough—in order to save these girls from certain infamy!" TO CLEANSE THE COUNTRY. They wanted to deal, Mr. Meyer con- ■ tinued, not simply with the poor girls, i but with women who were herding ill i stylish flats. They must fight this - thing through until the streets of this • country, and their homes, should be ' cleansed for their children, and child- . ren's children, and the young girlhood - of the world should be redeemed, t (Cheers). t The Bishop of London expressed the t belief that not one in ten realised the - extraordinary extent of the "traffic." - It had been computed that 5000 girls t a year were required for one great city e alone. They did not realise how organ- - ised and ramified the traffic was. A - whole body of men existed for nothing t- else than to procure the girls for it. v He wanted the culprits to be whipped—thoroughly well whipped. (Cheers), e No body of men deserved it more than those who, for money's sake, engaged v in this tremendous traffic. [- The resolution was enthusiastically carried.