SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 March 1939, Page 7

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

PROPOSALS BY JUSTICES’ FEDERATION

ABORTION & LIQUOR CONTROL. DEALING WITH INTOXICATED DRIVERS. (By Telegraph—Kress Association.) TIMAP.U, March 15. With a view ro 'minimising or preventing the evil of abortion, the Federation of New Zealand Justices of the Peace decided at its annual conference in Timaru today to urge the Government to amend the Social Security Act to provide three months’ ante-natal treatment and maintenance in an approved home for unmarried women and deserted wives, and for the adoption at birth of the child by the State, subject to the consent of the mother, future arrangements for the child’s maintenance to be made without publicity to the mother. Women jurors were favoured by the federation. Suggestions that a woman justice should share the Bench in all domestic and affiliation cases, and that a- married woman should be appointed to the Bench of the Domestic Relations Court when it was established were also approved. The demoralising effects of supplying intoxicating, liquor to minors, a practice which claimed to be becoming a serious problem in the social life of the country, was stressed' by speakers, and it was decided to ask the vrovernment to consider the advisability of introducing legislation whereby any person who supplied, by way of gift or otherwise, any intoxicating liquor to any person appearing to be under the age of 21 years and be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine of £5O or imprisonment for three months. Other remits carried were: —

That this'conference of Justices of the Peace, representing all justices' associations in the Dominion, views with grave concern the ever-increasing cases of motor-car conversions, which we consider theft, and the loss and inconvenience suffered by the owners of such converted cars. It respectfully requests the Minister of Justice to bring this matter to the attention of all magistrates with a view to more adequate punishment. That in the case of offenders who have been found guilty of being intoxicated while in charge of a car, final forfeiture of the licence to drive should take place in all cases where an offender had been found guilty for the third, time.