WIFE DESERTION.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 461, 20 March 1909, Page 3

WIFE DESERTION.

A DIFFICULT SOCIAL QUESTION. DEPUTATION TO HON. DR. FINDLAY. (BI TELEGItATH SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) .... „ Dunedin, March 19. Members of the Otago Benevolent Trustees met the Hon. Dr. Findlay (Minister for Justice) at the Grand Hotel this morning and propounded to him a scheme to strike confusion and fear into tho callous heart of tho wife-deserter. Mr. Sidey, M.P., who introduced tho deputation, said that tho practice of husbands deserting their wives and families and esoapmg prosecution by going to Australia and elsewhere was becoming increasingly frequent. The trustees had thoroughly mscussed_ the matter, and had decided to ask tho Minister to try to arrange a reciprocal scheme between Australia and New Zealand whereby the practice might bo checked and the expense of dealing with tho deserters lessened. • ' The Minister said that no doubt.'the deputation appreciated the fact that the subject under discussion touched one of the most difficult social questions confronting any Government or Minister. Tho enforcement of tho domestic duties of a husband to his family was a difficulty in treating which very often more harm than good was done. The spe-iker- had appealed to the Minister ■ for Justice some years ago to bring back a husband. In this caso the polico had refused to go to the expense of sending a man over to identify • tho husband and bring him back. Tho Minister pointed out that in quite a number of cases where special exception had been made and the State had borne the. expense of bringing back a deserter the wife was tho chief agent in-having him released from custody. On account of this the police had advised that Stato money should not bo squandered in that way. Naturally that sort of action on the part of tho wife would still continue, for human, nature had not changed. The question was whether wife-desertion should nob bo. treated as a grave crime. Tho law was very jealous of tho rights of property, and should it not bo equally jealous of tfie rights of the woman in one of her great social functions? Of course, they must know that it was impossible to legislate to give efficacy. to laws outside their own country. Men were . brought back from other countries by an Imperial statute. Ho inferred, however, that the deputation suggested some mutual arrangement between New Zealand and Australia whereby a deserter from one place might Jip punished in the State to which he h;v - "fsaped. Ho agreed with tho suggestionriu.iiftus far as possible they should follow sons and daughters, who, having moans, deserted their aged parents, and ho had no doubt that thero was already sufficient machinery in the.Act to admit of its being done. He would discuss the matter with the Commissioner of Police and see what could be done. As for the request that the surplus of a prisoner's work over tho cost of nis keep should bo paid to his family, ho could answer that for the present with the statement that in no prison in New Zealand did tho valuo of a prisoner's work exceed tho cost of his keep. In Auckland, where the not cost of a prisoner was lowest, his keep exceeded his work by £10 a year, and in somo prisons tho excoss was £30.