VACCINATION QUESTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13846, 4 September 1908, Page 9

VACCINATION QUESTION.

„8"-,— A T vice-president of the Anti-Com-puuoij V aoeiiiutioii League of New Zealand, one of whose objects is io maintain, us a common parental and personal right, that vaccination bo left entirely optional, without. appeal to registrar, magistrate, or any other otftcor, , iug it, ill fact, in precisely the taitw relative position as any other medicaloperation or prescription, would undoubtedly feel in a "peculiar position" Jy 10 ' 1 called upon as Minister of Public ■Health to reply to a deputation of members ° Parliament., who sought precisely this same object. I confess to deep regret that Air. I'owlns in his ivply was not. true to his • private" convictions, but spoke as the mouthpiece of the medical health officials, losing in a moment the honest, transparent sincerity end clear-sightedness that have made him so widely and honourably known JU Auckland. Otherwise how could he affirm that the Act does not provide for compulsory vaccination, but for exemption, that " failure to get vaccinated was not an offence under tho existing law, but. it- was an offence not to secure exemption!" Has there been ar. officially revised and amended Act, transposing the "shalls" from "vaccination" to " exemption," and tho "mavs" from "exemption" to" vaccination';" Has section 160 of the said Act been repealed and deleted? Let anyone open the Act and read: "Every person is liable to a penalty not. exceeding 40s if, being the parent or custodian of a child, ho fails or neglects, without reasonable excuse, to cause such child to Ik l vaccinated and inspected as hereinbefore provided by this part of this Act." This is compulsory vaccination, writ large, and no wayfaring man requires an official interpreter to hoodwink him. Has tho Department. then become so anxious to save the people from vaccination that it threatens only failure to obtain exemption? But this is argumentuin ad ahsurdum—a eausistry that may amuse Jesuit novitiates. Official vaccinators ask, " Has your child been vaccinated?" not. "Have you got an exemption certificate?" The requirement to seek exemption is itself an invasion of personal and parent.il right. It: is an assumption of the prophylactic virtue of a nostrum that has been gibbeted and exposed throughout the past century, and is only.,maintained by a class that lias been authoritatively imposed upon, and professionally pledged thereto. Within a fraction the said Act is a compulsory Act, and the shadow of coercion rests over even thatthe first four, say 12, months of infancyand follows the child through life —to school, to army or navy, to reformatory or to prison, to industrial home, to hospital or asylum! Nor must it bo forgotten that the penalty for vaccination default may be repeated, "and that, there are official vaccinators callous enough to care nothing how often. These last nine months have called up in every prosecuted vaccination defaulter a living witness gain. the feeble sophistry of the Health Department. In a word -Sir. Fowlds, who in his heart loves liberty and justice, and has sworn knightly chivalry to their service, will not to himself be true, unless he resolves to strip the Vaccination Act from every shred of compulsion, or resigns his office! l.nwin Cox. Cambridge.