“TERRIBLE TRAGEDY"

Gisborne Times, Volume LX, Issue 9797, 6 May 1924, Page 6

“TERRIBLE TRAGEDY"

EXECUTION OF ANGUS AIUIIRAY

DR DUHIG’S VIEWS

MELBOURNE, April 22. A most remarkable declaration that the controversy concerning the execution of Murray has called forth comes from the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, the Rev. Dr. Duhig. He describes the execution of Murray as a “terrible tragedy,” reminding ua that there is something very seriously wrong with civilised society. “Or course the taking of life for life," said the Archbishop, “is as old as society itself, and it has been done in every country on earth. To dispute this is not my point. What I wish to emphasise Is the fact that so many of our fellow beings are, through no fault of their own, brought up under conditions that lead to the commission of crime. Is it, I ask, just to frame laws to punish, for offences against society, and its code of civilisation, men for whom neither society nor civilisation has ever done anything P Men have been found m gaoC and even on the very verge of paying the death penalty, who never, until then,, learnt even the rudiments of religion, and who declared that n society- had been better to them they would have been good, law-abiding members of the community. What can one expect from the submerged masses to be found in all our great centres of population P Some of these people arc driven to crime by slieei want, others commit crimes because society allowed their parents to be degraded, and their degraded parents reared them in an atmosphere of crime. Neither the gaol, r.or the workhouse, nor the gallows is going to remedy this state of things. As ion o' as we neglect to go to the root of it so long shall have crime in our midst. There are, of course, those who will be deaf to all appeal to uplift themselves and conquer vice, no matter what is done for them, but my experience is that tho great majority of men will respond to kindness. I do not wish to raise here a question of which public feeling lias at times run high, and which has been the cause of bitter controversy in the past but I appeal to all thinking citizens who believe in God and in the maintenance of our Christian heritage to say whether we are doing justice to the children who, in the next generation, will be the active builders of the nation, when, during their school days the most precious time oi their lives ive feed their bodies and cram their minds, hut starve their souls, and leave them to regard religion, based on the law of God, as-a matter of entirely secondary. consideration. Without religious training—l mean that religious training which is given effectually onlv when it is made an important part of the child’s daily life ar.d education —it is unfair to expect the young to grow up with due reverence' for the laws of the country, which, presumably, are founded on the Ten Commandments, and about which they have been left partly or wholly ignorant.”