THE SECRET DEBATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9082, 16 June 1888, Page 3

THE SECRET DEBATE.

TO THE EDITOK.

Sir, —In your excellent article on the above, and in Mr. Cox's letter, one point seems to havo been somewhat overlooked. It was not a question of newspaper publication, a matter much safer in the hands of responsible editors than in those of the peculiar Assembly at Wellington, or of any officials whatever; it was a question as to whether there should be any authoritative record of an important debate; and the House decided that there should be no such record. Except in name New Zealand is not a free country, but the most important bulwark of such liberties as we enjoy consists in the public discussion of public affairs by means of the press. The suppression of the report of a debate in the National Assembly constitutes a claim to irresponsible power by the paid representatives of the people. Is it for this that the nation taxes itself to maintain a House so enormously out of proportion to the population i The Contagious Diseases Act has in its provisions nothing reformatory either in design or in effect. It by no means aims at putting a stop to prostitution, for it encourages the practice by professing to make it safe for men. This safety for men is the sole object of the Act, and to its supposed requirements all justice, all decency in the treatment of the women, are entirely sacrificed. Two years ago the Act was repealed in Great Britain. It has since been swept from the Crown colonies, and by a recent cablegram in your columns we learn thab the motion for the repeal of the Indian Acts

passed the House of Commons without a division. Yet here in New Zealand 9 majority of the representatives of the people insist on retaining this law for the encouragement of vice, and claim the right to do this after a secret debate. Will the people allow a claim so monstrous in a professedly tree country ?—I am, etc., J une 14. Mary Steadman Aldis,