AUSTRALIA'S GRAVEST PERIL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9719, 15 February 1910, Page 3

AUSTRALIA'S GRAVEST PERIL.

ADDRESS BY SIR JOHN MADDEN. Sir John Madden, the Chief Justice of Victoria, recently gave an address in Melbourne on "Our Gravest National Peril," which has profoundly aifected public opinion. Sir John Madden said: — The subject with which I have to deal has been brought sharpiy urder my notice by the report of a rapid increase in the number of childmothers at one of the Kefugees in Melbourne.

Everyone realises the vital importance which the purity, chastity, and honour of a nation's women are to that nation. If women are indisposed to regard virtue and purity as being of great importance., and if they will not impress their importance on their children, then the results are so farreaching and disastrous that war, famine, and pestilence are incomparably milder afflictions. in passing to and from the suburbs at night J, like others, have been struck by the numbers of little girls, attractive, well-dressed, but obviously only children, to be seen in the streets, wandering about, sometimes with men, sometimes in search of them. At ten or eieven o'clock at night they are still about, and still without any guardianship or protection. Irresponsible people say; /Our young people are not like other young people.' Personally, lam certain that they are no better than the young people of other countries—full of the same weaknesses, and ready to yield to the same temptations. These young people are to be seen in the streets and in the parks. Along the beach, between Port i

Melbourne and Sandringbam, for three seasons in the year the whole place is covered with girls who should be at home in bed. They are to be seen in the company of men whom no wise parent would permit them to be in company with. Very often they are in the company of boys who, from their very circumstances, are unfitted to be huabands.

What the result to the girl is no one doubts, be the pretences what they may. To the hospitals we can look for some more accurate information. In the Women's Hospital, during the year ended June 3th, there were 137 cases of the confinement of women, or rather girls, under the age of eighteen years. Ot those, 90 were single, which meant that 65f per cent, of the whole of the girls so confined under the age of eighteen were single. Nineteen were between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. In the Carlton Kefuge, during the month before the annual meeting, there was a total of ,53 inmates. Of these, 34 were under twenty years of age, thirteen were under the age of seventeen, three were only fifteen, and one was fourteen and a half.

When on circuit in the country I have been particularly struck with the depravity of the children giving evidence in these cases: It appears that the children travel long distances to and from school, and without any guardianship, and they have these opportunities for wrong doing. After finding juries of hardheaded, sensible men acquitting the boy concerned, I have made injuiriefc amongst the people, and have found that a feeling existed that wh.le it was one father's son that day, it might be nearer home the next day.

Another serious cause is the manifest decay of the religious sense. e religious sense is a great buttress of the moral character. Many people, nowadays, are philosophers and students of modern thought. They have decided, to their own satisfaction, that there is no material hell, but they are hot S'j sure about heaven.

I cannot, for obvious reasons, deal with the political difficulties! which underlie the question of religious training. I recognise, however, that there is a very great blank between the end of school life at fourteen and the time when the boy or girl reaches the age when they have to work for themselves. We want means whereby children can be trained during this interval, and institutions to which they can tie compulsorily sent to receive that training. The cadet system for schoolboys is good, but there should be another system whereby boys who idle about the streets could be physically trained, brought under discipline, and reminded of the responsibilities of their manhood. These are causes, with a few suggestions for amendment. * There are other remedies. In addition to the training of boys and eirls after

they ieave school, there should be something in the nature of a curfewbell for those children —and paticularly girls—who hang about the streets at night. Young girls have no business there, and should only be allowed out with their fathers, mothers, or brothers. It might be urged that after being at school or business all day the children want fresh air. But if the loss of fresh air will do the girls mischief, the loss they will sustain in the streets and parks will do them fifty rimes more evil.

It is also important; that parks and gardens shuuld be closed, say, at seven o'clock. The beaches should be patrolled by the police or other officials, who should send the young girls home. There is another remedy dealing with another aspect of the evil. There are often cases where the mother is hoptless and dtsperate, and is ready to murder the child herself, or by a professional person—for there are murderesses of great reputation in that respect—people to whose tender mercies babies are sent from other States. To obviate all that horror and the destruction of the nation's over-fine sensibilities, a foundling hospital should be estab-

lished in the city, somewhere easy of access, where a child might be delivered safely and secretly.

There is another evil to which J. wish to refer, that also results in murder—the use ot drugs by persons qualified only by their very audacity —the use, also, of preventive expedients which add strength to temptation, and which often fail to avert disaster. These things can ba obtained by a mere child for the asking. Legislation should see that they cannot be obtained except by a certificate.

One thing, in conclusion, that would have a great effect would be the resolute moral resentment of the whole body of the public. If we rouse ourselves to a recognition of what it

threatens, if we regard it for the shocking and desperate evil it is, the effervescence it will cause will bring about the end of the evil, and ensure that no b'ot so foul or desperate shall rest upon the face of Australia.