The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 1938. AN UNHEALTHY DRIFT

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 272, 13 August 1938, Page 10

The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 1938. AN UNHEALTHY DRIFT

On previous occasions recently, reference has been made to t te prevalence of dishonesty as revealed in reports to Parliament by t ic Police Department and the Chief Probation Officer. We have now before us, in the annual report of the Department of Justice, some very pointed comments by the Controller-General of Prisons on the present-day drift from our standards of civic morality. The statistics of the year 1937 revealed an increase in the prison population. In his diagnosis of the causative factors Mr. Dallard dismisses the plea ot economic necessity. “The cause of crime in.. New Zealand, he says, “would appear to be more social than economic in origin. Intelligence tests and mental examinations (he adds) disclose that a relatively small percentage of offenders have not a. norma capacity to discern right from wrong, or are feebly inhibited, hence it is evident that the majority of criminalconduct among young New Zealanders arises from a slackening up of moral standards and a drift from a socially acceptable ethical code. There are marked indications of an urgent need for an earlier inculcation or the principles and obligations of citizenship. The Bishop of Wellington remarked on a certain occasion when speaking of anti-social tendencies in New Zealand, that people were apt to give too little heed to the warnings of their spiritual.leaders concerning the deterioration of public morality. They were incline'’ to regard such warnings as the kind of thing to be expected from professional moralists in the performance of their religious duties. But here we have a responsible public official, head of a department which might be described as a scientific laboratory for. research work in the sphere of crime, voicing convictions demonstrating that the anxieties expressed by Bishop Holland and others on the subject had a so id foundation. This accumulation of testimony should command the serious attention of the community. . . . r • h We have no lack of provisions and institutions for reforming the criminal, and for salving young offenders from criminal careers, but, as Mr. Dallard points out, “detention in a Borstal institution or a reformatory for reclamative purposes at best, is a negative force-— like an ambulance at the bottom of the precipice. It is much more difficult,” he says, “to extirpate bad habits arising from baneful early environmental influences than to approach the problem in a positive way by developing' early the homely virtues of honesty, truthfulness, and a due regard for the rights of others.” f That is the problem in a nutshell. Surveying these . environmental influences,” certain aspects and conditions of social life in this country leap to the eye. The discipline of family life has been greatly relaxed. The younger generation enjoys a large measure of freedom. Though we may admit that the discipline and restrictions of the Victorian period might have been severe and excessive, we must also confess, in the light of our experience of the new liberty conferred on our youth, that a most important precaution against the abuse of it, an educated sense of personal responsibility, has been largely neglected. We have a Godless system of education, yet a Government whose leaders frequently boast that Christian, principles are the animating force in its social legislation is unwilling that facilities for making it less Godless should be extended. Within the last few decades the cinema and radio broadcasting have become the two most powerful impacts upon the minds of impressionable youth. Their influence for good or evil is tremendous. An official censorship enables the weight of public 'opinion to be brought to bear on any undesirable tendencies in the cinema. The radio, under official control as it is in this country, is, or should be, subject to the same influence, because those appointed to control broadcasting are the servants of the public. Does the public realise its responsibility in this matter?' That it has the power to insist that the standard of broadcasting, whether from Parliament or from the radio stations, must be above reproach? In two respects the service has been grossly abused—in the use of it by a Cabinet Minister in Parliament,publicly to vilify a woman; and in the vulgarities broadcast by the Commercial service, to say nothing of the offensive vilification directed at certain people by the director himself on a recent Sunday. The listening public included young people of an impressionable age, and whatever Mr. Semple or the Rev. Mr. Scrimgeour may think, the effect of such language as was used by each of them can hardly be expected to have had an elevating influence on the mental tone of the younger generation. This is one of the “environmental influences” from which our young people must be rescued.

How can we blame the younger generation if the standards of public life and of public manners are lowered in this way? It is for the elders of the community to set thc example, to create those environmental influences which mould the characters of the young people. This is a very grave matter. “Those who grow up in a right atmosphere, and are trained to right standards of conduct, usually, run true to form,” says the Controller-General of Prisons. What are we doing to provide “the right atmosphere,” to train our young people to “right standards of conduct” ? It must surely be apparent to the people of New Zealand that such things as the report of the Committee on Abortion, licensed vulgarities on the radio, and a demonstrable laxity in social morals, point to a definite decadent tendency, an unhealthy drift, which must be arrested if our rising generation of citizens is to be spared its evil effects.