THE HALT & WEAK

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 68, 14 December 1931, Page 12

THE HALT & WEAK

A Burden on the Fit CRIPPLING TAXATION Comment by Professor Dominion Special Service. Dunedin, December 13. In the course of a lecture to the Plunket Society on the subject of “Evolution and Education,” Professor Lawson, professor of English at Otago University, referred to the recent statement by an English judge, who trenchantly criticised the nations' indifference in permitting mental defectives to propagate their species! The judge had spoken out without hesitation and had said the public must have the courage to face the question of sterilisation instead of allowing the curse to continue unabated. Professor Lawson said he thought it would ultimately come to that. Professor Lawson pointed out that all civilised nations were carrying an ImmenSb burden of taxation in keeping alive in institutions pebple who in normal circumstances would .not have been alive. The best had to be done for every human being who came on the scene, but the halt and the weak were laying a burden of taxation on the fit which would ultimately cripple them, and the standard of life would, in the circumstances, go down. That was a plain statement of fact. Hefeit frankly puzzled himself.