Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1925. A SOCIAL PROBLEM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 57, 6 February 1925, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1925. A SOCIAL PROBLEM.

Tub report of the Committee of Inquiry into mental defectives and sexufl offenders is a comprehensive, authc ritative, illuminating and perturbing document. Not content with covering the local problems which they were appointed to investigate, the comn ittee have sought aid outside of the Dominion, and the reports which they have obtained from the Public Hoal. h authorities of England and the Unite d States, and also from Canada and Australia, as to the methods adopied in those countries for coping with the same problems should be of great value as throwing upon our own troubles and treatment the light derived from the much wider experience af other lands. But. these, after all, tre but side-lights, and it is mainly u[ on the committee's personal ination of local problems that the value of the report must depend. Of the patience, the care, the industry and l;he thoroughness with which the work has been done the report itself fund lies evidence on every page. The investigation has, of course, as the comn ittee says, been "of a very painful ind depressing character," aiirl nothi ig but a sense of public duty and a genuine concern for the welfare o* their fellows could have enabled the Hon. Mr. Trigjs and the other members of the committee to carry it through. In their concluding paragrapl they refer to the need for maintaining the elements of mental, moral and physical strength in the community a;ainst the contamination of weakening and debasing influences.

' This is the lesson which has been impressed upon the minds of the coi imittee during their investigations, and they have been sustained in their saddening experience by the ho] e that this lesson will be taken to heart by both the Parliament and the people of the Dominion." Is tha committee's hope to be mocked by ti eating this admirable report as so many -of its predecessors have been treat ;d? Is it to be honoured with a few onnal words of praise, and then put nway in the pigeon-holes and forgotten? We trust that the public senti nent which led to the appointment of this Committee of Inquiry will not be demobilised until its recommendations have been made the basis of a< tion. With VMftfd to the first part of their inqui.-y—the treatment of mental defectives—the principal finding of the comn ittee is: r .'hat the unchecked multiplication of the feeble-minded and epileptic is lea ling to a continually growing addition to the sum of human misery, an ever-increasing burden on the St; te, and the serious deterioration of the race. A sort of rider follows, "That it would be suund economy as well as in the best interests of humanity, to deal with the problem at once, even though it involve a substantial expenditure." Yes, it would actually be sound econi my to abolish that "most saddenii g sight" of which the committee speaks—the sight of "so many children

deprived of their full share of the light of reason, often maimed and stunted in body as well as in intellect." If those who find this subject so unpleasant that they prefer not to read or to think about it would keep the lot of these little children before their eyes—children, as a great divine has said, "not born but damned into the world"—they would surely be moved to lend a helping hand instead of passing by on the other side. And for most of us is not the most effective way of helping these little ones to be found in insisting that everything that is practicable in the committee's recommendations should be put into, operation without delay? And will not ignoring the report, or permitting 'it to be ignored, be equivalent to passing by on the other side?

One of the fundamental recommendations regarding the feeble-minded ; s the appointment of a Eugenic Board to inquire into and classify all notified cases of - feeble-mindedness, epilepsy with dangerous or immoral manifestations, and moral imbecility as defined by the English Mental Deficiency Act, and also the cases of persons discharged from mental hospitals. The Eugenic Board, whose registration of any person in this list of unfortunates will be subject 1;o the Supreme Court, will also have the power to recommend to the Minister of Health the segregation, supervision or treatment of the different classes. The power to order the removal of feeble-minded persons or moral imbeciles to a training farm or industrial colony may excite some controversy, but the right of appeal to the Supreme Court should answer most of the objections. The commanding position given to the Eugenic Board in the first branch of the inquiry is occupied by the indeterminate sentence in the second. For three years in succession the Prisons Board has been urging this reform, and the committee credits the origin of the inquiry, so far as the ti-eatment of mental degenerates and sexual offenders ? concerned, to this action of the Board. The argument for tho change appears to be irresistible. "Long terms of imprisonment," says the committee, "though combined with the lash, have proved quito ineffective as a deterrent, even to the individual concerned." The principle of the indeterminate sentence seems to fit these cases just as well a-j any others. Short of a surgical operation—a problem, by the way, which the committee passes on to the Eugenic Board on the ground that there is not yet sufficient information available for a final judgment—short of such an operation some of these offenders will never bo cured. Others may under milder treatment qualify for probation or a full discharge. The indeterminate sentence will allow every case to be treated on its merits.