PARENTAL CONTROL

Evening Star, Issue 22805, 13 November 1937, Page 28

PARENTAL CONTROL

COMPULSION TO SUPERVISE CHILDREN SUGGESTED A MAGISTRATE'S EXPERIENCE [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, November 12. Amendments to the Child Welfare Act with a view to compelling greater parental control were advocated by Mr Wyvern Wilson, S.M., who presided for the last time at a sitting of the Children’s Court, at the conclusion of the business of the court. Mr Wilson, who is the senior magistrate in Auckland, will commence his three months’ retiring leave bn Monday. “ The Child Welfare Act, under which we have been working, was experimental legislation when it became law in 1925, and has been once amended,” Mr Wilson said, in addressing his associates. “ I think you will agree with me that the time has arrived for a further revision of the Act.

“ We who have been through the work know best the difficulties that have beset the Child Welfare Department, with its various institutions. Juvenile delinquency is, in most instances, attributable to. lack of parental control; It is so often the case that the sins of the parents are visited on the children that leads one to admire the provisions of the English Act, which enables the Juvenile Court to bind over the parents to exercise proper supervision over their .children. “ There are other provisions in the English Act which tend to encourage individual responsibility,”- Mr Wilson continued. “It is no use putting all the responsibility for errant children on the State. It is far better to compej the parents to look after their own children. Nature never intended that anyone but the parents should look after the children, and any regulations that tend to lessen the individual, responsibility are to bo deprecated. Wo all know in our own experience that any success we may have met with has been very largely due to the fact of good upbringing, the influence of one’s parents, and the influence of a happy home of one’s own.

“ This being the last time I shall be presiding in your court, I want to thank you very much for the assistance you have always given me.” Mr Wilson said. “ Ours has been difficult work at times. It has been very difficult and very unpleasant, but somebody has to give up time trying to keep erring children on the right path, and you have given up your private time to this very good work. I think you deserve thanks for it, and I know

how close to your hearts it has been. “It has been very close to my heart, too, because I know from my own experience in other courts how many criminal careers are started in childhood. It is the effect of bad home influence and sometimes of bad hereditary tendencies. This is the place where these influences may be guided and the tendency checked, and in that way the Children’s Court is a court of the utmost importance.” Mr J. C. Entrican, on behalf of Mr Wilson’s associates, expressed regret that the court was no longer to have the benefit of his services, and he mentioned the court’s appreciation of Mr Wilson’s courtesy and consideration.