"SOCIAL PESTS."

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXVII, Issue 1363, 4 June 1895, Page 5

"SOCIAL PESTS."

We do not identify ourselves with the opinions expressed by our correspondents.]

TO THE EDITOK. Sir,—The Auckland petition of the unmarried unemployed must have given a little exercise to the Hon. Dick's thoughts. Bid he take it in all seriousness, I wonder, or look upon it as a rather big joke 1 Anyway, I scarcely think it will meet with much consideration by him. He ia a Liberal with Socialistic leanings; yet he walks much in the ancient way. Class legislation—to use a hackueyel, Tory expression—is always wrong and indefensible unless we belong to tho class legislated for. But giving preference to the husbaud, when he and Ccelebs are in competition, may be considerate, but is it equitable ? The Premier's compassionate heart goes out to the prooreant, necessitous parent, whilst the unmarried sufferer is unlamented. Of a verity this is class legislation or favoritism. Paternity, in New Zealand, is much blessed, but of single-blessedness there is none. Thou art iu a parlous state, bachelor! Spouseless and therefore workless ! One of Sir John Lubbock's hundred books is "Principles of Political Economy," by John Stuart Mill. Kindly, sir, permit me to quote from the book, apropos of the foregoing: Religiou, morality, and statesmanship have vied with one another in incitements to marriage, and to the multiplication of the species, so it be but iu wedlock. Religion has not even yet discontinued its encouragements. The Roman Catholic clergy (of any other clergy it is unnecessary to speak, since no other have any considerable influence over the poorer classes) everywhere think it their duty to promote marriage, in order to prevent fornication. There is still in many miud3 a strong religious prejudice against the true doctriue. The rich, provided the consequences do not touch themselves, thiDk it impugns the wisdom of Providence to suppose that misery can result from the operation of a natural propensity : the poor think that " God never sends mouths but He sends meat." No one would guess from the language of either, that man had any voice or choice in the matter. So complete is the confusion of the ideas on the whole subject, owing, in a great degree, to the mystery in which it is enshrouded by a spurious delicacy, which prefers that right aud wrong should be mismeasured aud eonfoundod on one of the subjects most

momentous to human welfare, rather than the subject should be freely spoken of and discussed. People are little aware of the cost to mankind of this scrupulosity of speech. The diseases of society can, no more than corporal maladies, be presented or cured without being spoken about iu plain language. All experience shows that the mass of mankind never judge of moral questions for themselves, never see anything to be right or wrong until they have been frequently told it ; and who tells them that they have any duties in the matter in question, while they keep within matri tnonial limits ? Who meets with the smallest condemnation, or, rather, who docs not meet wilh sympathy and benevolence, for any amount of evil which he may have brought upon himself and those dependent on him, by this speech of incontinence? While a mau who is intemperate in drink is discountenanced aud despised by all who profess to be moral people, is it not to this hour the favorite recommendatiou for auy parochial office bestowed by popular election, to have a largo family and be unabie to maintain them ? Do not the candidates placard their enormous families on walls, and publish them through the town iu circulars ? Little improvement can be expected in morality until the producing of large families is regarded with the same feelings as overfondness for wiue, or any other physical excess. But while the aristocracy aud clergy arc foremost to set the example of incontinence, what can be expected from the poor ? Onecannot wonder that sileuce on this great department of human duty should produce unconsciousness of moral obligations, when it produces oblivion of physicd facts. That it is possible to delay marriage, and to live in abstineuce while unmarried, most people are willing to allow ; hut when persons are once married, the idea, iu this country, never seems to enter anyone's mind that having or not having a family, or the number of which it shall consist, is at all amenable to their own control. One would imagine that children were rained down upon married people direct from heaven, without their being art or part in the matter ; that it was really, as the common phrases have it, God's will, and not their own, which decided the numbers of their offspring.—l am, etc., Rusticos.