THE MINISTERS COMMENTS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 25, 29 July 1922, Page 8

THE MINISTERS COMMENTS

• The Minister of.Health.(the Hon. C. J. Parr), interviewed with respect to the remarks made by the Rev. H. Mason, taid :—"Mr...Mason's statement does not alter the facts, which are plain. As 1 .stafed-in. the-House, the police* were the Jirsf'to mow in the matter, the woman having no - relatives. I have before me the application made by Francis Forsyth, .constable, of Anckland, lor the committal of the woman. In his application the constable declares that the woman has !ju£t threatened to take her life, by poisoning herselt with coal gas at her home.at Otahuhu. The policeman, further states that she made an attempt on her life'some time ago, and was taken to the Auckland Hospital for treatment. Further, the constable declared that she had .no relatives in New Zealand, and resided; alone. The constable's application was sent in the usual course to the Magistrate, Mr. Poynton, at Auckland, ■who summoned two well-known medical inen.Dr Coldicutt and Dr. Reid, to report upon the ease. Both medical men ■were of opinion that it was a case for the mental hospital. Their report states that she is'melancholic; that she admits attempting to poison herself ivith gas., and that she declares that she will make a. further attempt to poison herself it she can. ' She stated further to the doctors that she was quite tired of life and had had'a lot of trouble; also that she wouki have, taken gas the night before they examined her .if she could have got it•Also it-is a fact that she had been in the ■ mental. hospital some years beforn. On all the facts before him, the Magistrate then committed her to the mental hospital. My reference to the local police in the House was to the Auckland police, and not especially to the Otahuhu liolice, and was intended to show that the. matter was not started by any irresponsible or interested person. My statement that the police moved in the matter influenced by concern for the woman's safety cannot be disputed. Mr. Mason's attack upon the police will, no doubt, receive their attention."