JUDGE EDWARDS AND THE MORAL LAW.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 May 1920, Page 2

JUDGE EDWARDS AND THE MORAL LAW.

To the Editor. Sir,—What docs tho Judge mean by the word "morality"? Will he give us its definition? If a man is free, he is free to bind himself, to make a promise. Having made a promise, he will, In the measure of his moral sense, keep it. To keep his promise will be a moral act; to break it, an iounoral one. Fidelity to promises is one of the strong supports of social life. It Is not an act of high morality to sign a new treaty after having successfully broken a first; nor does the successful breaker thereby provo himself likely to observe tho second. No sane person would look upon as a paragon of morality the individual who took a fifth wife the other day, with his four divorcees as bridesmaids. Of such a ono may be said what Mr. ChejteTton said about England's broken pledges: "Over all theso hills and valleys (of Ireland) our word Is wind, and our bond Is waste paper . . . . The Irish regard our Government simply as a liar who has broken hlB word. The Irish members, of Parliament were betrayed by the men whose corruptions they had contemptuously condoned. There darkened about them treason and disappointment, and he that was hapiiio.it died in battle; and one who knew and loved him spoke to me for a million others In saying: 'And now wo will not give you a dead dog until you keep your word.'" Morality is older than barbarism. A State may sink into barbarism, while It advances commercially; and as It descends It will demand a plurality of wives, and even propagate a system that' demands it. Tills demand will be voiced by its politicians and its press; and its fathers will hand their daughters over to men to whom any lover of morality would not consign n dead dog I am, etc., T. .1. POWER. I* S —Will papers that have published the Judue'j remarks kindly ton tliitf '