Urgent Necessity for Women Police

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 132, 5 June 1937, Page 14

Urgent Necessity for Women Police

DUNEDIN, June 1. At the annual meeting of the Society for the Protection of Women and Children at Dunedin, Dr. McKinnon advocating the need for women police, said that on the last occasion when representatives of the National Council Women went in a deputation to the Minister of Justice asking for this reform, his reply showed, in her opinion, a want of knowedge of what was at the root of social evils. He said that now that the poorer classes were getting better wages and times were prosperous, there would be no need for women police. The experience of many of those who were engaged in social welfare, sail the speaker, was the exact opposite. Better wages for men and boys and increased leisure time at their disposal, increased certain social evils. There was more money availabe for drink, for gambling, for dances, other amusements and for motor week-ending in the country. Moro money was spent in enticing foolish girls with presents which only led in one direction when young boys of 20 and 21 received a basic wage which might be anything between £1! and £5 a week.

“Did anyone imagine that the surplus was being put by in order to buy a homo for a future wife and family?’’ she asked. For the most part it was spent in personal indulgence, and during this year they had instances of men using their extra leisure and pay to get drunk on Saturdays, wives testifying that their husbands had never previously taken drink in excess.

Another result was that daughters over 16, who were free agents in the eyes of the law, were leaving their homes because of a drunken father. Leaving their homes usually ended in immorality. Social workers stood appalled at the abortion rate and wer3 distressed when they heard of the suicide of fine young girls in their early twenties who found themselves suddenly faced with the result of indulgence to whioh they had given little thought, and whose mothers had failed to guide them in the way in which present-day freedom shoud be used.