DRASTIC ACTION URGED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 303, 22 November 1937, Page 12

DRASTIC ACTION URGED.

SOCIAL EVILS

Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Nov 19. Since the publication on April 12 of the report of the Maternity Services Investigation Committe, which was set up by the Government to inquire into the incidence of abortion in New Zealand a flood of resolutions from numerous sources lias been sent to the Government. Clerics of Auckland, prominent throughout the New Zealand Church, have prepared a joint appeal to the Government which strikes a rather different note from the formal resolutions to which much publicity has been given. ~ “AVe urge upon the Government the duty of taking immediate and drastic action to deal with the evil that threatens the very existence of the nation,” -the appeal states. “AVe also believe the Government should deal with certain provocative causes of the situation complained of, including the sale o‘i salacious literature and the use of liquor at and ill the vicinity of public dances. AVe make this ap]ieal to the Government with a deep sense of our responishility to the nation and with the very gravest sense of the extreme urgency of tho matter and of the irreparable harm inflicted on the minds and hearts of the young by these evils.”

Signatories to the appeal are Archbishop Averill, Bishop Liston. Rev. J. A. Allan (representing the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church), Rev. E. D Pateliett. chairman of the. Auckland Methodist District Synod, Dr J. J. North (representing the Auckland Baptist Auxiliary), Rev. H. Johnson. Moderator of the .Auckland Congregational Churches, Brigadier A. J. Sutter. Auckland Divisional Commander of the Salvation Army and Rev. A. Astor, Rabbi of the ' Auckland Hebrew congregation