SIR HUBERT OSTLER’S VIEWS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 25 November 1943, Page 4

SIR HUBERT OSTLER’S VIEWS

FURTHER REPLY TO DR. McMillan Wellington, This Day. “I did not intend to enter into a newspaper controversy with Dr. McMillan, but as he has accused me of misrepresenting the facts, I feel bound to reply, and find it difficult to make my reply short, as I find that he has given a column to the Dunedin papers containing a number of statements which have not appeared in the local Press,” says Sir Hubert Ostler, in a further reply to Dr. McMillan on their controversy concerning the New Zealand prison system. “Dr. McMillan denies that he interviewed prisoners privately while he was Minister,” Sir Hubert continued. “I distinctly recollect that not only did the gaol officials express concern about this, but in the evidence taken at the official inquiry into the Mt. Eden episode mention is made of ‘a state of unrest in the prison,’ and I recall that this condition of affairs was largely attributed by the prison officials to the fact that Dr. McMillan, shortly before the disturbance, had interviewed privately in Mt. Eden prison a prisoner under sentence for subversion, and had als discussed matters with exprisoners, some of whom were subsequently recommitted, with the result that there were rumours upsetting to discipline throughout the prisons of radical -changes pending. Dr. McMillan has striven to place the blame for the Mt. Eden incident on the prison staff, by saying that they did not follow the customary routine. He made the same defence in Parliament, where he was made to look foolish when his own statement was produced that the usual practice had been followed. He has now changed his ground again. He now admits that the ordinary routine, which had been observed for many years, was followed, but that some old rule was broken in following the routine. Dr. McMillan must be romancing, as no such rule is in existence. Is it not significant that there had been no escape from Mt. Eren during the five years prior to his becoming Minister, and no assaults on warders for a considerably greater number of years? “LEAVE PUBLIC TO JUDGE” “Dr. McMillan’s original statement was that most prisons have no common room. 1 stated in reply that practically all of them had, and that in the more recently-constructed prisons large common rooms had been expressly provided. His reply is that I must be wrong, as Mt. Eden has no common room, but he can point to no other large prison so situated. He evades the issue in his last reply by saying that those who know the position will smile at my statement: but I am speaking from my own knowledge. All the prisons erected in recent years—Paparua, Waikeria, Mt. Crawford, Point Halswell—and each of the three prison camps in the centre of the North Island have commodious rooms. Apart from mere lockups to hold prisoners pending trial, all the prisons have accommodation where prisoners can foregather, except Mt. Eden, which has a chapel and a schoolroom which are used for lectures, entertainments, etc. I leave the public to judge from these facts how much reliance can be placed on Dr. McMillan’s sweeping statements. USE OF TEfeM “MR.”

“As far as I can understand Dr. McMillan’s last reply, these are the only matters in which he charges me with misrepresentation, unless he intends to deny that he directed the use of the word ‘Mr’ in correspondence relating to prisoners. I have seen at meetings of the board more than one file of letters written for his signature when he was Minister which referred to prisoners by their initials and surnames cancelled with blue pencil and ordered to be rewritten, the only change in the copy of the letter dispatched being the insertion of the word ‘Mr’ before the prisoner’s name; and this was not confined solely to correspondence with members of Parliament, as Dr. McMillan now suggests. The Prisons Board was informed at the time that the Minister had directed that in future prisoners must be referred to as ‘Mr.’ CHALLENGE TO DR. McMILLAN “In his statement in the Dunedin paper, on the candour of which I find it hard to be complimentary, be makes certain alleged statements of fact which I can only think he*could have got from one of his private interviews with a prisoner who was bent on ‘pulling his leg.’ For instance, he says that in one prisop the librarian could neither read nor write. I venture to say that such a statement is purely fictional, and I challenge Dr. McMillan to make public the prison in which he says this occurred, so that his statement can be checked. His story of a prisoner being punished for not obeying orders when his disability was not disobedience, but deafness is, I venture to think, equally apocryphal. “In reply to my statement that Dr. McMillan had endeavoured to secure special treatment for a favoured group in the matter of dress, he attempts to throw doubt on my knowledge of the facts by stating that debtors and misdemeanants of the first division have always been permitted to wear civilian clothes. He apparently does not realise that at law these are not criminal prisoners, whereas the group for whom he manifested sqch solicitude were. FEEBLE-MINDED PRISONERS “In his Dunedin statement, Dr. Mc-Millan-gave the record of a man who was imprisoned twice for grave sexual. offences, and was subsequently found upon examination by a psychiatrist to be certifiable as feeble-minded. He says: ‘ln 1940, when I was Minister, this man was examined by a psychiatrist, who reported that he had the mentality of a child of ten years, and was certifiable as feeble-minded. Anyone reading that statement would be Jed to believe that it was Dr. McMillan himself who had seen the need for and procured the expert examination of the prisoner. As a matter of fact, although Dr. McMillan was Minister at the time, he had no hand in procuring the examinatic/'. and knew nothing about it until informed by the Prisons Board files. It was the Prisons Board itself which procured the examination. Dr. McMillan suggests that this youth should have been sent 1o an asylum when he was first convicted of theft, and that this would have prevented the subsequent sexual offences. Unfortunately it is not so easy to dispose of feeble-minded persons. Doctors are reluctant to certify them, and magistrates hesitate to commit them to mental hospitals. Indeed, it is problematical whether the prisoner in the ease cited would have been committed to a mental hospital but for his second offence. j The experienced medical view is that ; the feeble-minded may bo capable of : earning a living under favourable cir- ; cumstanass outside an institution, as this man undoubtedly was. so why commit? It is not until feeble-minded persons have become a danger to society 1 that it is thought right to keep them in * confinement for life. It is of inter- I est to note in regard to the man cited,

that the psychiatrist, in addition to what Dr. McMillan quoted, stated a mental age of 10 is generally sufficient for self-support, and that the man was actually a good worker under direction and supervision. In citing this case Dr. McMillan has proved what he set out to deny, viz., that in appropriate cases the board avails itsetf of the services of a psychiatrist. “ILL-INFORMED DABBLING” "In his Dunedin statement, Dr McMillan has JT/at-hesitated to descend to personal -attack, and to endeavour to arouse class prejudice by referring to my ‘comfortable circumstances,’ about which he obviously knows nothing. The inference which he desires to be drawn is that people in comfortable circumstances are lost to all feelings of humanity and compassion for the unfortunate criminal,” Sir Hubert Ostler says in conclusion. “I decline to meet him on that ground. Although his methods are open to criticism, I am willing to believe that he has a genuine desire to see an improvement in penal conditions which, of course, must and does proceed with the development in human knowledge, but he should recognise that there are others just as humane and anxious as himself to help, but who, through a better understanding of the'implications of the criminal law, as well as a greater experience of the vagaries of human conduct, ape apprehensive as to the mischief that can arise from ill-informed dabbling.”