MORAL OR IMMORAL.

Evening Star, Issue 13150, 5 January 1909, Page 8

MORAL OR IMMORAL.

ENGLISH NOVELISTS IN DEFENCE OF THEIR WORKS. A SPIRrrED~RESPONSE. [Fkom Our Special Correspondent.] LONDON, November 27. The mail from New Zealand last week Drought me copies of the newspapers reporting the Christchurch magistrate's judgment m the case in which three bcofedlcrs' assistants were fined for selling what weredeclared to be "immoral" novels. 'The books in question, it will be remembered, wore 'The Yoke.' 'Anna Lombard,' 'Sir Women,' and 'Five Night?.' To give the authors concerned an opportunity of. placing their point of view before the • New Zealand public, I sent copies of the judgment to Mr Hubert Wales, at Hindhead, and to Miss Victoria Cross, at Torquay, and invited each of them to express an opinion on the trial and its result. Each author has responded with a verv spirited defence, and I think that their communications, reproduced below will be found to make inter-: . reading. Both claim for their work v seriousness of purpose and both apjA:.- to the New Zealand public for a wider tolerance and for a maturcr and more intellectual attitude towards the problems of sex than the recent tna would seem to them to indicate. .Miss Victoria Grosii tells me that she has received '-a very charming letter" from a well-known writer and university man in .New Zealand (I may not give his'name, as the letter i s a private one), in the course of which he says: I am at a locs fo understand how, even on a strict interpretation of "immoral." fcix Women' could be condemned. fcaioie is a beautiful and sincere nature. and the story is the very glorification of maternity. He concludes his letter by saying : Let me assure you that we people of New Zealand are not all mad. The vast majority of people laugh as eonsumedly at this sorry farce as do English people. ° HUBERT WALES OX MORALITY. Mi- Hubert Wales, author of ' The Yoke ' has given me the following statement regarding the result of the hearing of the case at Christchurch:— When Marcus Aurelius wrote " No one will prevent you from living according to the laws of Nature," he reckoned without the people of Christchurch. Ho did not know that in the twentieth century thev would call "The Yoke'—a book which recognises human impulse, but sheds a fierce light on the evils and dangers of prostitution—" immoral," and decline to allow it to be circulated. Perhaps the people of Christchurch are not aware that all the philosophers, the naturalists, and the scientists, from the earliest times to the present day, have insisted upon the essential morality of human nature. ' Take Nature for your guide," wrote Seneca, "for so reason bids vou and advises you." Marcus Aurelius. whose principles are still offered to children as wholly admirable, drams on the same note again and again in his 'Thoughts.' "Man must live in conformity unto the u) v * of his . liatal ' e )" tie says. And again : I " That which is not against Nature cannot be evil." Down through the centuries the same idea persistently finds expression in the works of thinkers. One cannot quote them all. D'Holbach wrote in the eighteenth century: "The moral law must be founded on the essential nature of man." Darwin, in his 'Descent of Man,' says: "The term 'general good' may be defined as the means by which the greatest possible number of individuals can be raised in full vigor and health, with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which thev are exposed." "As a criterion of physical perfection," Herbert Spencer "would accept only the complete devotion of all the organs to the accomplishment of all their functions." That is the pronouncement of a man of enormous mental calibre, with the whole history and experience cf the world to the nineteenth rentury to guide him, and its soundness is not questioned by science. . . . The question is exceeding difficult. For in this matter there is undoubtedly a conflict between the good of the indi' vidual and the good of the community. To concede to the individual untutored liberty to satisfy the conditions laid down by Spencer, as only compatible with j physical perfection, would open immense J opportunity of abuse, and lead to chaos: I "If a man." gays Haeckel, "desires to j have the advantage of living in an or-J bnnised community, he has to consult not only his own fortune, but also that of j the society. ... He must realise 1 that its prosperity is his own prosperity, | and that it cannot suffer without his own '■ injury." It becomes necessary, there-' fore, to disclose how far and by what ! means it may 02 possible to achieve the ! well-being ef the individual without op-'j posing the interests of the community. It. ii> the honcit. faithful, and fearless attempt to find an answer to this proIdem which is considered by the people of Christchurch to be immoral. —"Victoria Cross" Regrets the Verdict.— " Victoria Cross." who lives at Torquay, j has sent me the following with reference! to the Christchurch verdict regarding the | sale of some of her novels : | Dear Sir.—l have been asked to express my views on the trial recently held at Christchurch and the pronouncement by the magistrate that he considered my book ' Anna. Lombard ' immoral. This book, now approaching in sales half a million copies, which ha-s been favorably received in every part of the world, been translated into all the principal languages, run as a serial in some of the large newspapers, and been acclaimed by some of the most distinguished men of the century, stands, I think, and has stood for some years, on too solid a reputation for the opinion of one man, or even many men. to injure, it. My principal feeling is one of regret that in the notable young colony of New Zealand, which the English regard with affectionate admiration, such sentiments as were littered at the trial should have been expressed. We in England look upon New Zealand as a place of vigorous and upward growth, where liberty and progress march hand in hand: we expect great things cf it, a development which one day will place it in the forefront of nations, but no country can be reallv

great where the liberty of thought and expression is denied, 'where new ideas are not allowed, and from which the master pieces of fiction, poetry, painting, and music, which are gladdening and delighting other countries, are excluded. Such a nation must fall behind and remain in darkness, while the rest of the enlightened and civilised world goes forward to the light. When the magistrate who has given his decision against my book said that his opinion was that of one man, and therefore fallible, he showed that hepossessed the liberal fairmindedness which one would expect from a New Zealander; but when. he said he believed that most well-disposed persons in the community would agree with his decision, he made a wide statement that I think on closer investigation he would not find borne out by the facts, and had I been able to lay the mass of evidence that I have in favor of ' Anna Lombard ' before him, possibly his decision would have been very different. I have favorable reviews and notices in the Press of all countries, and in addition hundreds of letters that I have received from people representing every rank of society praising the book both as a work of art and a moral sermon. These letters are from Ministers of Education, clergymen and their wives, lawyers, doctors, military and naval men, and many are from mothers of families—those mothers who think it right to bring up their children with eyes open to all in this world, in order that they may cope with its evils and learn to admire its good. These persons, many chosen for high places in their country, must be as well disposed as Mr Bishop, yet they praise the book as much as he condemns it. The matter resolves itself into this : that every great work is admired by many and disliked by many, but surely in a glorious voung nation like New Zealand the general judgment will be that there must be liberty for. all, and that no one small section of the community' must be allowed to decide for the whole. I appeal to New Zealand as an artist, and in the name of every other artist, not to shut out our works, but to allow us to offer it of our best, a.s we have done. I ask the New Zealanders as a whole whether they can seriously consider a book to be really immoral that has been acclaimed by and sold continuously in all the other countries for seven years. It is new, it contains novel theories. It is not on oldfashioned lines, but for that reason shall New Zealand, the house of progress, of forward advance, condemn it? The test the magistrate put it to was the fitness for the schoolgirl of fifteen. But is New Zealand ready to make this her standard for all her'art ? If that were so. she could have few pictures, few statues, little poetry—for genius does not create for the undeveloped mind of fifteen—and she must go backward, not forward, in civilisation. In conclusion. " Great is the truth, and it will prevail." I am conscious that I have never written an immoral line, and I confidently believe that the day will coma either in my lifetime or after my death when Christchuroh will regret its decision and reinstate my book" in its libraries, and I also believe that there are many noble men and women in New Zealand who retrret that decision

to-day—a decision against the liberty of thought and freedom of speech, without which no nation can be truly great. —The Christian Ideal.— In a letter to me, Miss Victoria Cross observes : " I need hardly say thait to me the books, especially ' Anna Lombard,' represent 'the good, the true, and the as the Greeks used to say of their art. 'Anna Lombard' 1 wrote particularly as the study of a Christian man, the hero acting throughout toward the heroine as I consider Christ enjoined us all to act to one another. But the fact is people have strayed so far from the Christian ideal that they no longer recognise it'when shown to them, and, as in this case, think it immoral!"