TE ORANGA HOME ENQUIRY

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 8 April 1908, Page 7

TE ORANGA HOME ENQUIRY

THE COMMISSIONER'S REPORT.

[press association.] WELLINGTON, April 8. The report of the Commissioner, Mr Bishop, S.M., who was appointed to enquire into certain matters connected with the Te. Oranga Home, has been received. The Commissioner states that owing to lack of sufficient and suitable accommodation the girls had been dealt with in. two classes, the better girls being put in the first class and the more troublesome girls in the second. Difficulties of management under the present system are almost overpowering, and must often strain the patience and temper of the attendants to breaking point. The inmates consist of girls of all ages, many of them having been hardened and corrupted by indulgence in all forms of vice. Additions were about to be made to the Home, and will improve the whole system and enable the manager to so deal by way of classification with certain • girls as to do away entirely with a great deal of the punishment that she feels called upon at present to inflict to ensure proper discipline. Tie Commissioner finds fault with the manager for the way in which she kept the register of punishments, and expresses himself as opposed to the use of the strap on young women. The assertion that it would be impossible to run the institution at all" if corporal punishment were abolished he regards as a serious admission of weakness. He thinks corporal punishment should be entirely abolished at Te Oranga, but if the department is not prepared to go to that length it should be used on the authority of the department .and under medical approval. He comments in terms of approval on the staff and their relations with the manager, and concludes: "I can imagine no greater incentive to reform in the case of most of these young people than the fear of indeterminate detention. I believe it would do more to help forward the work of reformatories than anything else."

DUNEDIN, April 8. Mr Fowlds, Minister for Education, referring to the Commissioner's report on the Te Oranga Home, said he was pleased that after the searching investigation so little fault had been found. The most vital point was the necessity of an efficient means of classification, which would be brought before his colleagues. Regarding corporal punishment, the Minister said the department, as well as himself, had always been opposed to it, but it was the unanimous opinion of those responsible for the actual management of the institution that the USC of strap and hair-outting was absolutely necessary in extreme 6aSe§. In similar institutions in America corporal punishment was abandoned, but after a lapse of five years it had to be resorted to again as the only corrective means. The Commissioner's report proved conclusively that the complaints regarding food and the physical exercises of the girls were absolutely unwarranted. Mr Fowlds said, in conclusion: "The management that can produce such results from materials described by the Commissioner must stand approved in the minds of unbiassed people."