Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1913.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 44, 20 August 1913, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1913.

FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN It is rarely that a criminal session of the Supreme Court passes without attention being called to the need for increasing the efficiency of the protection which the law provides for women and children. Sexual offences are deplorably common, and the Judges tell us from time to time that they are on the increase. What the causes may be of this unfortunate tendency in a country which enjoys a comparative immunity from most of the social evils that trouble other lands is a question to which none of our experts in eugenics has yet provided a satisfactory answer. Until the millennium arrives science is never likely to succeed in coping with this evil as effectively as it is dealing to-day with a number of diseases which once were among the most dread scourges of mankind ; but, fortunately, there is no reason why we should wait for the millennium before devising some palliatory measures. The quickening of the social conscience has enormously strengthened the legal protection of the weaker members of the community in recent years, and here is clearly a case where the process should be pushed further. The ladies who waited upon the Premier on Monday were, therefore, performing a public service no less valuable than unpleasant in calling attention to the subject and in making proposals for the amendment of the law. They represented a considerable number of women's societies throughout the Dominion engaged in social, charitable, or political work, and in particular, the Wellington Society for the Protection of Women and Children. A deputation more fully representative of the opinions and feelings of the women most actively concerned in one capacity or another for the welfare of their sex could hardly have been got together, and the weight thafc is due to their suggestions on this account is greatly increased by the intrinsic value of the suggestions themselves. Mr. Massey, who is rarely very expansive in his replies to deputations, naturally did not care to break his rule on this occasion ; but he expressed his general sympathy with the resolutions submitted to him, although unable to agree with all of them. The Premier's attitude will, we are sure, be shared by an overwhelming majority of the people of this country, and we are also sure that neither in his case nor in theirs will the margin of dissent be a very wide one. In the first of the recommendations submitted to the Premier the societies represented had the authority of a Supreme Court Judge behind them. It was Mr. Justice Wenuiston who recently called attention to the unfortunate effect of the statutory provision which allows a prisoner to plead as a defence to a charge of carnal knowledge that he believed the girl to have passed the age of consent. The admission of such a plea adds immensely to the difficulty of securing a conviction, and we see no reason whatever why it should be allowed. In mitigation of punishment the prisoner's belief on thi6 point could be properly admitted, and would doubtless be allowed great weight in cases where there was any reasonable room for doubt. But there is no reasou why the way of th« transgressor should be made smooth. Let him be compelled to proceed in such a matter entirely at his own risk, and prevented from evading the criminal responsibility for. the ruin of a young life by pleading that he was mistaken regarding the age. The raising of the age of consent from sixteen to eighteen years and the raising of the marriage age beyond the present limit of twelve were two other matters urged by the deputation. The last point surely allows no room for difference of opinion. It is a truly remarkable survival from a barbarous past that eveu with the consent of parents a marriage can be lawfully contracted at the age of twelve— which is, we understand, as low as the limit fixed in India. The importance of the point for the purposes of the deputation is thafc the present limit allows a man to escape his punishment by getting the parents' consent to marriage with his victim. The marriag© of a girl of twelve or thirteen is quite repugnant to the public conscience at the best of times, but under such conditions as these it is positively revolting. For these and other pointß which they brought before Mr. Massey the deputation deserves the thanks of the community. The ladies who took part in it have performed an urgent but invidious duty with a most praiseworthy v combination of discretion and courage.