The New Zealand Herald. THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1870.

New Zealand Herald, Volume VII, Issue 2017, 7 July 1870, Page 3

The New Zealand Herald.

THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1870.

SI'KUTKMUK AOK.N l»>. G!vo every man ihinf ear, but few thy voice: Take each man's censure, butreserve thyjudgruont. Tins above all,—To thine own si ll tie tnw And It mum follow, as the iiiuht the day, Thou cans't not then be false to auy man.

In tho nnino of tlie people of this province we must protest against the passing of the new Vaccination Bill by tho Assembly in its present form. It utterly disregards tho feelings opinions of tho people in a mutter of social interference, in which they will not be controlled, and aft Sir. Gillies very justly warned tho House, compulsory arm to arm vaccination will, at leant, as faras his province is concerned, meet with most strenuous opposition from all classes of persons. An unpopular poll-tax would scarcely raise so strong a feeling of resistance, for that would touch merely the pockets of the people, whereas this bill oilers violence to tho social and family relations, which must distress the mind, and arouse the most determined feel-

ings of opposition, and an intense abhorrence of its operations. As was demonstrated by the former Vaccination Act, money penalties are perfectly useless when opposed to the wellfoun ied intelligent objections of the people ; and we do not hesitate to say, that though in the case of the present bill the penalties are vastly more potent, and the supervision more perfect, they will nevertheless be found equally useless. There can be no step more foolish on the part of the legislators of a country than to bring the law into contempt by framing enactments which popular feeling will not permit to be carried out.

But the present bill is not only most stringent ; it goes a step further than that; it bears moru the semblance of a military tyranny enforcing its provisions witli the eat and the platoon, than a popular institution emanating from a House of Assembly democratic m its form ami constitution; and it the people of Xew Zealand were true to their own political rights they would, irrespect ivu ol the part icular merits and demerits of this bill, protest against the principle of such legislation." In the last Act a neglect to vaccinate a child was punished by a fine of forty shillings, recoverable from the parent. In the present bill not only is the fine recoverable more than once, but, finally, all other measures having failed, the parent and child may be taken before a Justice of the Peace, and the child may be ordered to be vaccinated within a fortnight, whether the parent will or no. Such social interference as this is likely to lead, we should fancy, in many r■ s l s. to something more t lian passive resistance of the law. We think that one of our Auckland members went far enough when he proposed that the penalty of forty shillings should bo repeated monthly till the vaccination was performed ; but clause twenty-two of the new Act, which provides that aJustice •' may makean order for the vaccination " of any child under fourteen years," is altogether irreconcilable to preconceived notions of British freedom. Then, too, the seventeenth clause is most objectionable, inviting, as it were, each one of the community to turn informer upon the other, by throwing open tho Kegister to inspection to others than officials on a small fee of sixpence. Ollicialism is also multiplied under the Act. and, doubtless, it will be an expensive one to work.

But it must not bo supposed that in their bitter hostility to the measure the people of this province, and we believe of tlie colony generally, are chafing under an ignorant impatience of restraint. There is no objection to comjjulsonj vaccination in the public mind. All admit the value of vaccination, and the necessity of using it as a preventive for t hat fearful scourge which, without such preventive, might decimate the European population, and sweep away the Maoris allogether. [r is not compulsory vaccination they protest against, but the compulsory arm t> arm vaccination which ;,:is bill provides. The people of the present dav, it must be remembered, are fully alive to the dangers of arm to arm vaccination —very many, indeed, in the knowledge of these matters being far in advance of those legislating upon the subject,—and it is not silly prejudice which operates upon them, but incontestihle scientific truth that forms the basis of their opposition. They are satisfied that there is a possibility of their offspring being conta initiated with a terrible disease fa-life--if not cut off in infancy, as frequently happens—by diseases which the medical profession have failed to recognise, or that they may transmit to their progeny the same baneful inlluences introduced into their blood bv the virus taken from the arm of a child—perfectly healthy in its own appearance —bil k . which carries as yet latent within its veins the heirloon of disease and sin. When we are assured that no medical man, let him be ever so experienced, can say when the vesi cle or pustule, as they call the vaccination, contains syphilitic poison or not, how is he to know that he is using pure lymph, or be certain that he is not poisoning the blood of the hapless child and may be of generations yet unborn. It is certain that impure cannot be distinguished from pure lymph, an 1 equally certain that the healthy appearance of the child from which it is taken can form no reliable guarantee of its purity, and hence the dangers of the arm to arm vaccination which the Assembly is asked to force upon the colonists of New Zealand. It is not compulsory vaccination that the public objects to, but the arm to arm vaccination provided. Let the Government provide the lymph from the heifer as well as that taken from the arm of a child, and allow parents to have whichever they choose used in the vaccination of their children, and all opposition to the bill would be removed, and this the public have a right to de.nand. We cannot see what reason can exist why the bill should not contain this concession to popular feeling and intelligent opinion. It has been clearly shown that expense is no serious obstacle, and we much fear that medical prejudice has proved the great obstruction—that it is not ignorant prejudice on the part of the people against arm to arm vaccination, but ignorant impatience against lav dictation on the part oftlie profession, that operates against the provision by the Government of bovine lymph. It has been shown that a heaithy heifer calf can be hired tor the purposes of vaccination for £' ; that twelve such calves would suffice for the use of the province of Auckland, the inhabit ints of the citv and neighbourhood being monthly apprised by public notice that the lymph was ready for use, while there would be abundance also to send for use to the country districts. Surely twelve pounds per annum for each of the great centres of population in. the colony would be far cheaper

than the cumbrous machinery of the bill now before the House. It ten times the amount eren were necessary, it would not be too much to expect that the Assembly should consult the wish of so large a majority of the thinking portion of the people in this mutter. Animal vaccination would be accepted by the people as a great boon, and would ,is certainly secure the complete operation of compulsory vaccination, as the attempted enforcement of the arm to arm system will defeat the object intended by the [.legislature. In Russia. France, and Germany the arm to arm system has been abolished by the Governments, and animal vaccine is regularly produced for the public use. In these countries the Governments, more or less despotic though they be, have yielded to the knowledge and experience of the most en'ightened of the 'Members of the medical profession of the day, and have shown a sincere desire for the welfare of the people, which, it grieves us to say, responsible Government in New Zealand has failed to exhibit in this matter.