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Evening Star, Issue 16547, 5 October 1917, Page 4

We have no present intention of entering npen a detailed exCrappiing with animation of the Fell Disease. Social Hygiene Bill, ... the second reading 0 f winch was moved last night by the Minister of Public Health in a speech of much power and study of his subject—a speech that deserves to be read and digested by every well-wisher of New Zealand. But we should experience tho uneasy feeling which arises from a neglected duty if we failed now and here to accord our cordial commendation of the principles underlying this most important measure. Judging bv the text of the Bill itself and bv the speech of tho Minister, the Hon. G. W. Russell is to be congratulated on bavin" discharged a difficult task with infinite credit and tact. Ho has handled a most delicate problem with painstaking care, assisted, obviously, by expert knowledge of tho highest order.

The proposals contained in the BUI for checking the spread of contagions social diseases -are certainly drastic, but not more rigorous than the nature of this gigantic evil, which is sapping the foundations of public morality, urgently demands. Our complaint is rather that file .Minister has not been urged by his departmental officers to carry the war against social vice into those places where it flourishes most, it luxuriates and thrives abundantly in an environment that is entirely frge from risk of suppression. What are known as the “ red lamp ” districts are notoriously not the only sources of contamination ; there are other localities, smugly entrenched behind barriers set up by convention, that are equally if not more dangerous to the public health than the class specially aimed at by the Bill. As till the world knows, social diseases have a way peculiarly their own of shunning the light, and most powei-ful and multifarious are the incentives to concealment operating upon the individual sufferer. Contamination does not always spring from personal fault, and the morally innocent shrink with dismay from any disclosure of their malady. The guilty and guiltless alike join the “ conspiracy of silence ” which is fraught with such menace to the public welfare. It needs no words of ours to impress upon the people the added degree of gravity which the war has given to this urgent problem. An augmented malignity to social disease is part of the terrible harvest of all great wars. A people enlightened and reeolute will not come short of the adoption of vigorous measures to combat the scourge. We feel confident that Parliament will in this matter faithfully represent the high moral sense of the community, and reflect its solicitude for the guardianship of public health. We hail with the liveliest satisfaction the proposals in the Bill enabling the Minister to appoint women patrols. Power is taken to select “ health patrols of either sex ” —obviously men and women of proved discretion, much tactfulness, and possessed of a wide experience of worldly affairs—whose duties will be to protect the health and morality of our yonng people, who are freed much too early from those restraints which make for the foundation of happy home lives. But the Minister will be wise if he carries his own argument a little further. In one part of his speech he stresses the point that women are to bo specially appointed to examine women offenders’; in this particular lino of activity it is absolutely essential that only women should deal with young girls and thoughtless women, for the full confidence of the latter will only be given to one of their own sex. This fundamental rule of psychology has been demonstrated over and over again. It-will also be noted that these patrols are to be vested with “ the powers of police constables," and to have the same measure of protection as policemen in the exercise of the varied duties entrusted to them. Necessarily the utmost care must be exercised in making these appointments, and the appointees must go through a systematic course of training on the lines adopted in other countries for educating women police or patrols as to the legal powers they are called on to exercise. No false step must be taken in launching this reform, because its success is wholly dependent on the character of the women to be chosen, their adaptability to this special work—largely of an observational nature—and the thoroughness of their equipment and preparation.

Above .ill there must be no sex discrimination in the matter of pay and other financial considerations. If, after a reasonable term of probation, which every applicant should faco, the women patrols “ make good,” and are certified by their superior officers to “fill the bill” in every particular, we feel sure that Parliament and the taxpayer will willingly acquiesce in any reasonable demand made by the Minister for recompensing the members of this new anxiliary force. We are especially strong on this question of equal pay for equal work, bocnuse, _ havin’g consistently urged this reform on the attention of the powers that be, we are entitled to claim that it shall not be jeopardised at the outset by any scheme of pay based on parsimony. Faithful and efficient discharge of' duty will only be rendered when the conditions of employment are conducive to contentment on the part of the individual and productive of the best service that the State can command. In England, in Canada, in the United States, and in the majority of the Australian States—in fact, wherever the experiment has been tried—this war has shown that women are peculiarly capable of aiding in the maintenance of Law and Order within specified channels; and we have no hesitation in declaring our belief that the womanhood of New Zealand, when properly organised and adequately tutored, will demonstrate their ability to do quite as much for the moral and physical welfare of the community as their sisters in other lands have accomplished. It is high time that the splendid part our women have taken in upholding the Imperial Cause

shahid receive better recognition than has hitherto been accorded to it by our politicians, and as an instalmcfat of bare justicee along this line we welcome with unfeigned pleasure the proposal to employ women as patrols in the directions designated in this Bill.. As we have already said, their qualifications for this special work are transcendently beyond those of men. In introducing this innovation the Hon. Mr Russell is taking a step that wo are sure lie will never have occasion to repent, and concerning which the public approval will deepen as the operation of the reform is enlarged.