PRESS OPINIONS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 52, 25 November 1907, Page 3

PRESS OPINIONS.

THE IMPRISONED BOOKMAKERS. Wo nro by no means blind to tho measure of inconsistency that is disclosed in tho attitude of a Government which legalises tho totalisator, which is responsible for tho law that mak'os tho individual who' lays odds on a racecourse liable to imprisonment, and which now contemplates the licensing of bookmakers, lu the light of this attitude the element of compromise in the Gaming and Lotteries Bill between tho bookmakers and the racing clubs is strongly suggested. However, though argument on tho extent to which hotting may bo a crime is doubtless most interesting, the fact that such argument is possible can surely be no extenuation of the action of tho bookmakers who, disregarding warnings, deliberately and with a knowledge of. tho probable consequences of thoir action, put thomsolvos in the position of trespassers at Riccartou. We see no necessity for any display of sentiment on their behalf nor any occasion to point them out as victims to tho inconsistency of the law as regards betting in New Zealand. The sentences imposed may soom sovero, but it is to bo remembered that tho magistrate, on prior occasions when cases' of similar ki*d had been elealt with by him, had mado clear his intention in future of adopting more stringent measures as a detorrent, and in hearing last week's cases he commonted on what scorned to be an organised attempt to defy the law. We are disposed to allow that a feature of these prosecutions for trespass which is apt to arouse public resentment, especially when imprisonment without tho option of a fine is the punishment, is that they are brought by the racing clubs, and not by tho police. Possibly tho special Parliamentary committee which considered tho Gaming and Lotteries Bill, might with advantage havo devised somo moans of dealing with this aspect of the case. Still, though tho hill may not be a perfect measure, wo hope a strong effort will yet be made to place it on the Statute Book this session. —"Otago Daily Times."

FOR WIVES AND MOTHERS. 11l tho heated discussions which take place from time to time on labour .questions, thero is ono class of the community, systematically overworked, with no fixed hours and no payment for overtime, whose interests seem to bo completely overlooked. Wo refer to tho wives and mothers belonging to all oxcept, perhaps, tho really wealthy classes in New Zealand, and tho members of tho latter are 'so limited that they need hardly bo taken into consideration. Worst of all, .perhaps, is cho lot of .tho working man's wife. Wbilo the .husband has his hours of labour strictly/defined, and his minimum rate of wages fixed by an award of the Arbitration Court, his unfortunate wife has to struggle from early morning till lato at night, with all tho cares of tho family and tho house upon her shoulders. . •. . It is not easy to proscribe off-hand a remedy for tho present stato of affairs. Gas stoves, steam laundries, and other methods of. saving labour, do something to relievo the burden. In tho case of those who-can afford it there is an increasing tendency to go into lodgings, and as time goes on wo shall find apartment hotels springing up in tho principal cities hero, and being as extensively used as they are in America. But this is destructive of home life in tho truo. sense of tho word. A more immediately practical remedy is .being adopted in New South Wales, where tho Government are encouraging tho immigration of domestic servants from the "United Kingdom, Germany, and Scandinavia. Tho Government, in our opinion, ought to adopt the samo system hero. Many hundreds of dofnestic servants from overseas could be absorbed in tho Dominion annually without in tho least degroo affecting the rate of wages. Suitable domestics arc simply not to bo obtained at the present time, because tho work does not appeal to New Zealand girls. And surely tho overworked wives and mothers, with no union to help them, aro entitled to somo consideration from the Government of tho country.—Christchurch- "Press."

SANITATION IN SCHOOLS. The educational organisations of'the Dominion have repeatedly oxprcssod themselves on tho subject, and at the International Congress on School Hygiene, held recently at the Colonial Institute, it was brought prominently into notice. Tho congress was attended by l ever fivo hundred 'delegates from every of tho civilised world, and in his opening address tho President pointed out how groat was the concorn of the State in tho question, because tho general health and strength of tho rising generation depended largely upon tho part played by tho school. This is incontestable. From whatever point of view we approach the assertion, it.is evidently ono in which the national duty is imperative. Wo compel paronts to send their childrjn to a school—cither n public or a recognised private school—and thus prevent them fiom exercising that constant superintendence over the physical and moral health of their children which they might have exercised under more domestic conditions. For at least six, and frequently eight or ten years of tho lifo of a child the principal part of its days arc compulsorily spent withjn school buildings and grounds. These years aro the most important in its physical life. They aro the years in which latent weaknesses may bo eradicated or aggravated, the years of which tho gcod and tho bad aliko can never be aftorwards overthrown. If a child at school lives under healthful and strengthening conditions ; if strain is avoided and every care takdn to modify conditions wherever that is neces3'iry in individual cases; we may confidontly anticipate that the public schools of tho Dominion as of 'the world will strengthen the national life; but if schoolchildren are brought together under non-sanitary and nonhygiouic conditions tho public schools must as necessarily exert a most degenerating and deteriorating influence.—"New Zealand Herald." INFANT LIFE PROTECTION. The need of increased protection of infant lifo by tho Stato is amply demonstrated by statistics. Last year tho deaths in New Zealand of legitimato i infants under ono year of ago were 5.87 to every hundred legitimate births, while the deaths of illegitimate infants under one year to every hundred illegitimate births were 13.16. In other words, one of every seventeen children born legitimately in Now Zealand dies under twelve months of age, but one in every seven illegitimately born dies in infancy. And, of course, it is generally froni the illegitimate children that tho inmates of licensed homes come. Tliat there, should be a heavier mortality amoiig them than among legitimately born children is only to bo expected. They are handicapped by pre-natal conditions, and tho fact that the deaths of artificially-fed infants aro always mbro numerous than those of naturally-fed infants also explains to somo extent the disparity between tho mortality rates we havo quoted. But, although tho infants in licensed homes aro subjected to the disability that they are artificially fed, the discrepancy botweon the record of the deaths per hundred births of legitimate and of illegitimate infants respectively is too great to be accounted for morely by tho accident of circumstances over which those who have the care of tho illegitimate children have no control. A striking fact which has been mentioned by the Attorney-Gen-eral is that in the period of tho last ten years the death-rate of children under ono year of boarded out in Now Zealand under the industrial school system was only 7.79, although, as wo havo said, these children are drawn from sources which are not calculated to give them many advantages in the rncQ of life. In face of this, it is impossible,, to believe that a large number of Hie deaths of infants that have boon occurring in our country have not been prevontable, and we hope that tho devices which the Infant Life Protection DiJI proposes to employ for the purpose of giving children in licensed homes a hotter cbanco of life than some of them havo had in the past will prove to be effectual. —Otago " Daily Times."