THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1912. SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXII, 16 May 1912, Page 4

THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1912. SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

The most significant signs of the times are not those that make most show. "The shallow murmur, but the deaf are dumb," says Sir AValter Raleigh of creeks and rivers, and the same may be said of great social movements. Now and then, however, some specially significant incident stands out so conspicuously that even those who think little cf such things cannot fail to see that is is the proof of the progress of a farreaching revolution. A social movement, which is practically world-wide, was thus indicated the other day in England in connection with the custody, control, and care of a child. There was no public excitement in connection with

it, and very likely ijt attracted less notice than an ordinary by-election, boat-race, or football match. Yet, as we have said, it bore witness to a social movement of world-wide importance. Over seventy years ago Tennyson wrote somewhat sorrowfully of the fast-coming time when 'the individual, would wither and the world become more and more." Of course, the change thus deprecated had begun long before Ten-, nyson's time, but since he wrote it has developed at a rate never before known in History. And this has been due chiefly to the failure of the individual to do his duty to those dependent on him and to the community.' Happily, by a process which is in its nature providential, the comniunitv, through the medium of the State, is deliberately applying itself to the task of making un for the individual's remissness. The hope of students of the movement is that it will end in the effective co-ordination of the proper functions and duties of the State and the individual. Before this can happen, however, another change equally vital and world-wide will have to be consummated; namely, the regeneration of that moral and spiritual sense which has so long been deadening and dwindling in the conscience of the average man. It is in consequence of this degenerative process that the individual has been becoming more and more a failure in connection with those ideals and duties which are indispensable to character and conduct. In the meantime, however, there lias bean development in the conscience and activity of the community and the State; and it is this development which is illustrated by the incident of which we have spoken as happening recently in England. The case was in the "nature of an appeal from an order made by Mr Justice Hamilton, and the respondents were a man and his wife who, when they had lost their own child, were informed by their doctor of a child whom they could make their own by adoption. This they did in December, 1901, and the child thus adopted they treated as their own, and gave him their own surname. At the time of the child's adoption he was only a few weeks old, and his parents were not married; but on December 1, 1908, they went through the marriage ceremony; and as their circumstances had then improved, they thought they would like to get the child back. They discovered where he was and tried to recover him, but the respondents had grown much attached to him and lefused to let him go. Legal proceedings were then started, and Mr Justice Hamilton, before whom the matter came, refused to order that the child should lie given up. Thereupon, with a view to having the matter thoroughly threshed out, an appeal was made against Mr Justice Hamilton's order., and was heard in the King's Bench Division. There Air Justice Darling said that, in his opinion, the rule must be discharged. The application was for a habeas corpus to hand over a boy of eleven to his natural mother. The Persons with whom he was living had had him for ten years, and the evidence was that, as was natural, he had become much attached to them. Until these proceedings began he did not know they were not his real parents, said the learned Judge; and in the end the Court held that it would not be for the benefit of the boy to remove him from the home of his adoptive parents. In referring to this decision, the London Times described it as "another step towards the full assertion of the doctrine, now a part of the policy of every State, that a child has rights independently of its parents, that its welfare should be the guiding consideration, and that if parental wishes conflict therewith they are to be disregarded." In other words, the Divisional Court's decision supports the view what we have been setting out in this article, that where individual parents fail in their duty, the State takes it up, not only in the interest of tbe children who suffer, but in that of the community which otherwise would suffer still further were the children left to grow up under the unmodified effects of the neglect of the parents. It would be well to have, concurrently with this process, means for punishing the parents for their failure in their duty to their children; but it is easy to see that, in the circumstances indicated, the State is bound, in the community's interest, as well as in that of the neglected children, to undertake the parental duties. The fact is that, even in England, as The Times says, "a jurisdiction exercised by the Courts representing the King as parens patriae and. so to speak, supreme parent of children, has assumed more and more importance"; in short, the essential elf are of the child is the guiding principle. To judge by social conditions in New Zealand, and the extraordinary extent to which parents, especially in towns, neglect the management of their children, this country is more than ripe for a comprehensive new departuve in this connection. Cadet movements, boyscouting, and technical schools do much ; but there is no town, and hardly a village, in the dominion in which boys and girls do not run ruinously to seed through the criminal carelessness of parents; and some all-comprehending scheme, applicable everywhere, and with no opportunities for leakage or oversight, is urgently needed for the effective control of the young of both sexes. If Pailianient were to pass a law giving voluntary associations the necessary authority, and investing adult men and women with the authority of civic constables, subject in both cases to registration and certain regulations, the work would, no doubt, be gradually taken in hand with a fair prospect of success. Unless it is taken in hand, somehow, very soon, a steadily increasing number of young people will grow up without ejther morals or manners, and become lifelong curses to themselves and the country. This is already the cose with far too many; but who or where is the. statesman or social reformer who sees the urgent need of the times in this matter, or gives the faintest indication of a statesmanlike wish to deal with it ?The hour is indeed here, but where is the man ; or the men or the women ?