SOCIAL PROBLEMS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1137, 26 May 1911, Page 6

SOCIAL PROBLEMS.

. « • VIEWS OF CANON CURZON-SIGGERS. (By Telegraph—Prcns Association.) Dunedin, May 25. At the annual meeting of tho Society for the Protection of Women and Children to-day the president (the Rev. Canon Curzon-Siggers) urged the necessity for raising the age of consent, lhe society s report'showed that in a certain percentage of illegitimate cases girls became mothers just on or just over Hie age of 16, and some of them within the age of 17 wero mothers for a second time. He said there was a growing tendency for young follows to go for week-ends, and to arrange for girls to go with them. The society hoped very shortly to make an example in the Police Court of one such case. The speaker urged tho provision of a house of detention for girls who became mothers by immoral means. He also raised tho question of dealing with the mentally unfit, and said while the Government made some provision for males mentally d-efective, there was no provision for mentally defective females. He strongly urged sterilisation as treatment for defectives.. The society had very strong feelings on tho subject of applying the curfen- law so as to keep young people off the streets at late hoirrs, and to inculcate a taste for home life. He felt that the state of morality in Dunedin was not what it should be, and unfortunately Dunedin was no worse than other places. He hoped the Government would appoint a commission to inquire, into and provide means for checking the birth of the unfit.