"Decline In Morals’ Discussed By Panel

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31017, 24 March 1966, Page 14

"Decline In Morals’ Discussed By Panel

In regarding adults as “squares," young people tended to reject the moral beliefs of adults, a senior officer of the Child Welfare Division, Mr J. L. Hills, said in a panel discussion organised by the Cashmere Combined Division of the St. John Ambulance Brigade. Mr Hills was answering a questioner who mentioned the number of single girls having illegitimate children and asked the cause of the "decline” in morals.

The panel comprised Mr G.

A. Brown, secretary-treasurer of the St. John Ambulance Association (chairman), Detective Superintendent F. A. Gordon, officer in charge of the Christchurch C. 1.8., the Deputy-Medical Officer of Health, another doctor, the Rev. C. R. Marshall, and Mr Hills.

Mr Hills said that most children today knew more about sex than their parents did at their age, and many of them had an exaggerated desire to behave like adults. Above all, they wanted to have a good time, he said. Some Of the long-held attitudes towards boy-girl relationships had gon-', Mr Marshall said. Taboos had similarly disappeared. There were more opportunities for boys and girls to be alone than there used to be.

Detective Superintendent Gordon said that it was very rare for a single girl to have more than one illegitimate child. The decline in morals was caused by a decline in self-discipline and self-respect The most prominent cause of criminal tendencies was associations and environment, said Detective Superintendent Gordon in answer to a question whether criminal tendencies were inherited. Crime was highest in slum areas, and in State housing areas there was a greater incidence of juvenile crime than in other areas.

If a good boy or girl from a good home were “put in the Square with some of those long-haired types,” after a few weeks’ association with them he might go the same way, said Detective Superintendent Gordon.

The doctor said that it was not association alone that made young people go wrong. There had first to be some motivation to do wrong. If such a person was put in the Square, it would not be so much the association that made him do wrong, as that he now had associates to do it with.