A REPLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9981, 19 November 1895, Page 3

A REPLY.

TO THE ISDITOR. Sir,—ln your articlo in to-day's HcRAI.D you object to my saying that you "apologised for the ignorance of tho Auckland Liberal Women in regard to the Contagions Diseases' Act, of which thev constituted themselves the champions" You declare that you see no proof of their ignorance. You thus cut away the only excuse, a very poor one, I admit it is, for their action. In an English, paper which has juot reached me. The Sentinel, for October, a writer, discussing the Mew Zealand CD. Act, with special reference to this vote, says:— A perusal of the New Zealand C.D. Act makes it impossible to believe that even the minority indicated (of the Women's Liberal League) had any knowledge of what they were doing. No woman (save perhaps the proprietor of a house oi illfame) could possibly speak of that Act except in the direction of demanding repeal. To expei ienced eyes the solution itself has all the appearance of being drafted by a medical man." 1 may add that, if words have any meaning, the Liberal Women did constitute themselves the champions of the Act. They desired to have it rigidly enforced. You head your article quite rightly, Mr. Aldis in reply. But in the article itself you say that you "would fain avoid the subject of the CD. Act, but Mr. Aldis seems to revel in it," and you must "follow and refute him.' You omit to mention that it was precisely you, who yourself introduced the subject in "your leading article of November 4, and I only followed you and refuted your misrepresentations. Is this fair or logical ? You speak of the "truthless tracts" compiled by paid agents. The statistics of paid agents are notoriously not to be relied on. The compilers of the statistics in support of the Acts have been exactly such paid agents —police and doctors who gained their living by this craft. But the Right Hon. James Stansfeld, Mrs. Josephine Butler, Professor Stuart, M.P., Dr. C. Bell, of Nottingham, Dr. Birkbeck Nevins, of Liverpool, the late Mr. Benjamin Scott, Recorder of London, have not been paid agents, but, with many o'thp, have even frcoly of money, -time, and'labour for the cause they esteem to be that of morality and freedom. Nor are the Arijiy Sanitary Commissioner the English Secretary of State, paid agents for this purpose, when, in the Blue Book which I have already quoted in your columns, they say that the re-institution of the system in India cannot be advocated on sanitary grounds, and that more favourable results did not obtain in England while the Acts were in force, than since their abolition. 1 undertook to prove from documents that the agitation against the Acts was not principally because they applied to women only and not to men. The proof would, of course, consist of extracts from speeches and writings of - persons such as I have named above who were the leaders in the movement, This offer you refuse, and assert that your own recollections would overweigh any amount of documentary evidence. la that logical or reasonable? Would such a procedure be' admitted in any place where the nature of proofs is understood ? In reply to my challenge to name the' persons to whom you attributed certain sentiments, you reply, Thou art the man. You admit that probably I never used the words you.jmputo to me, but assert that the of the publio bears you out-iiii your misrepresentation of my views. I'challenge you to produce out of'my published letters any' statement which, fairly interpreted, expresses the opinion with which i yott/ore'dU me. • -<• ?. :, ~ ••••'•'• V,o '

The rest of your article is a hysterical scream, the meaningless cry.of a man Buffering from, nightmare. Out. of, the gush of, exuberant verbosity, one' piece of misrep* resentatioiy tands oat clearly: the implication that the object ot the C.D. Act was to tenderly care for and cure the wretched women, and then bid them go and sin no more. The object of that Act, stated in its title, is" For the better prevention of contagious disease." Its intention, as originally passed ia England and imitated elsewhere, was to provide clean women for the use of profligate men. Lord Hartinnton, the present Duke of Devonshire, in 1883, being then Secretary for War, speaking in the House of Commons, in support of the Act, said, "The main purpo3e of the Act was not to promote order or morality; but, it was the preiervition of the health of the soldiers and sailors." The Act endeavoured to heal women, that they might go on in sin. The pretence that it had any other object was well designated by the Rescue Society of London as " The greatest moral hypocrisy of the day." The Rescue Society of Auckland appeara to believe that the only way of dealing with the social disease is to provide a place of recreation in Queen-street, for girls on the downward path, and to ask Mr. beddon for an extra policeman to keep such in order. The policeman may, and snould, keep order in the streets, but no moral reformation can be effected by any method of force. N You say you know that " voluminous private correspondence on these subjects is habitually forwarded from Auckland," awl that" there are people among us who in their letters to members of those associations have been in the habit of misrepresenting the people of Auckland, and holding them and their city up to obloquy." How do you know this? Is there a practice at the Post Office of opening private letters and sending their contents to the Herald? The chief maligners of the city and its inhabitants are the doctors and the police who, for whatever reasons, are constantly publishing assertions of the exceeding depravity of Auckland, vouug and old; aud the chief corrupters are those who, while condemning the disnlay of vice, do their beat to lower the tone of public morality by sneering at all who wish to hold up tho law of Christ as binding on men and women alike. The police here are only imitating Inspector "Anniss, of Devonport, who, in 1870, evoked an indignant protest from the corporation of that borough, by evidence before the Royal Commission, which amounted to an assertion that, five years previously, every tenth woman in Devonport, and one in every ten of girls between the ages of 13 aud 15, was a common prostitute. Such misrepresentation of the state of public morality and health is an old device for getting up a scare, and producing a commotion, by which State medicine men and the police would be able to get hold of more power and more pay.—l am, etc., W. Steadstak Alms. November 13, ISO").