FIT AND UNFIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 177, 28 July 1928, Page 19

FIT AND UNFIT.

EXPERTS AT VARIANCE. IDEAS BEHIND DEFECTIVES BILL. WISDOM OK FOLIA "

iMy TOUCHSTONE.)

A lot «.f Xew Zcalanders »ee;n io be under the impression that all that is necessary to remodel the univer.-e is to p.ias an Act of Parliament, gazette a set of regulations under an Order-in-Couneil, ur set up a. board of control. Just at the moment the idea. is that Mother Nature, who has been on the job for a million years or so. has made a sad mess of the propagation of the human species, and unless Parliament gets busy this country will soon be full of idiots and deirciicral.t'H.

The Government committee opened its jcport with quotations from a book by .Mr. Lothrop Stoddard to the effect tliat in consequence of the higher fertility of alleged low-class elements in the populai ion civilisation is being undermined, etc., etc. Well, you can go and buy a book by Mr. Lothrop Stoddard that will give you the honors about the coloured iimn over-running the earth. You can buy another book by Mr. Stoddard that will scarc you into tits about what the Mohammedans are up to. Mr. Lothrop Stoddard specialises in writing not "shilling shockers" but "guine shockers."' Jt we base our legislation on Mr. Stoddard's books we shall live in a permit newt panic.

No Agreement. A-. to the "laws of heredity," on which i lie proposed legislation is based, there is no agreement about them. The literature is voluminous. One example, however, is amply sufficient, in Mav, l!J2o, there appeared in the "Nineteenth ( Vntury and After" —a leading English review which will be found in any city library—an article, "As a lUologist Sees It," by li. L". Punnett, P.R.S. Mr. Punnett has been Professor of Genetics at ( ambridgo University since 1912, and |iossesses rather higher credentials as an authority on heredity than any member of the New Zealand committee. His views carry at least equal weight with «heirs.

Statistics, he says, have shown that the proportion of feeble-minded in New Vork State is about three per thousand. J'rom what is know of heredity this fact, ho adds, would indicate that about 10 per cent of the population of that State are carriers of feeble-mindedness. There are 11 million people there, and thus we get over 1,000,000 carriers of feeblemindedness, all of whom are normal, the feeble-minded themselves numbering about 33,000.

Most of the "carriers" will mate with normals and will not have feeble-minded children. In the small number of cases where two carriers chance to male together, approximately one quarter of their offspring, we are told, will be feeble-minded, while half of their offspring will transmit this mental quality. The idea of segregating the feebleminded in asylums and preventing their propagation, pays Professor Punnett, uounds attractively simple. Jfe lias calculated how long it would take. To reduce the proportion of feeble-minded from 1 per 1000 to 1 per 10,000 would require OS generations; from 1 per 10,000 to 1 per 100,000 would require 216 generations; from 1 per 100,000 to 1 per 1,000,000 would require 684 generations. Reckoning 30 years to a generation, this means over 2000 years for the first stage, nearly 6500 years for the second stage, and over 20.000 years for the third stage, or about 110,000 years in all.

Defectives in Normal Families. Common sense and ordinary observation tell us that , idiots and imbeciles occur mostly in normal families. The New Zealand committee has got together a, number of sensational cases of feebleminded persons marrying feeble-minded persons and having degenerate offspring costing the State money to maintain, To save this money they will spend ten times as much to put thousands of persons in leading utrings, and so on. .Already we have medical men who would hump almost anybody into a mad-house, and the more inmates they can cram into their institutions, the more surgical operations they can perform, the happier are certain types of medical men. Ab to the number of feeble-minded in New Zen land, the committee fine this —like many other things in their . port —is "largely a matter of conjee! ure." Last year's education report showed that out of 216.807 school children there were UDO4 whose retardation is due to lack of intelligence. These children should be taught in special classes, but only .100 are so taught. 'Ihis is a mattei that ought" to be remedied, but it can be remedied without fancy legislation.

" Eradication." We have seen what Professor Punnet suys about "carriers" of feeble-minded-ncss and sound stock. Here is what Dr. (irav said in his report last yeai : •the chief danger lies in the union of 'carriers' with sound stock, and corno from defectives. Many normal parents are 'carriers,' and the stock should be eradicated. In any case the individual circumstances could be reviewed by a board. . . .To sum up, J believe the Eugenic Hoard should be entrusted with the power to order It will lie seen from the foregoing that t lift present legislation is but a first step of what Dr. (irav has in mind. W ha.l. <iu his remarkable proposals mean» \vn assume, for the sake of illustiation, I hat New Zealand has the same proportion of feeble-minded as New York State, and work out the situation on Professor I'unnett's basis, we find a really extraordinary field of calm ahead of _ our mental defectives board. First of aI • three mental defectives per 1000 of population uives us a total of 4500 such per•,olls. Then over 10 per cent of the population of "carriers" gives us about I."><1,1)00 persons normal in thenisehcs, but who, if mating with other carriers, may have one child feeble-minded out ot four born.

A Big Task. Dr. < ;rav and his friends have thus the moderate" little task of 'elladicating -omo 150,000 of the people of /ca land. Tt does not sound either a \cij feanilie or very necessary £ ° lessor Punnett's ideas an to tl«. otc ; ci!<_■(> of feeble mindedness lit in a lot hotter with 'what our """"'OVT.mmittJinn do those of New Zealand* toe. and his expertnes? seems J" te ' j l,i«h in degree as that of our local "ft let >■» <"> M ,Z e f2 .levilop in defective per.oM UKifull J", of such faculties as they P ' iU this B terilisatioj mean merely another g h with little to show for £ beyona of medical men and ot her experts in g billets getting where in paiticula