ARE CRIMINALS COWARDS?

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15504, 10 January 1914, Page 1 (Supplement)

ARE CRIMINALS COWARDS?

BY TOHUNGA,

Since Lombroso published bis famous statistical argument in defence of the theory that the criminal is a degenerate, iaere has been a periodic recurrence of interest in the profound problem thus raised. We may regard the great Italian writer as a scientific Calvin, who attempted to bring predestination up-to-date; those opposing him naturally follow "free-will" lines, and thus offer another illustration of the old, old maxim that "there is nothing new under the sun." Another Italian, following in the steps of Lombroso, claims to have under observation in Tripoli 225 soldiers who were ex-convicts, and to have discovered that instead of being good fighting men they were "faint-hearted in battle." In other words, the good citizen in peace is the good soldier in war— very encouraging theory for New Zealanders if it is a sound one.

The whole question is confused, however, unless we realise that Lombroso's theory depends upon the assumption that the normal man is subject to what may be termed "the social influence," and is naturally inclined to seek and desire the respect and esteem of his fellow citizens. From this instinct comes love of city and passion for country, acceptance of approved forms of organisation and willing submission to laws and customs felt to be for the general good. The man who is a good Aucklander or a good New Zealander unconsciously enrolls himself in a great civic or national organisation, and is impelled by his own intuitions to conduct himself in such a manner that he will receive and retain the good opinion of Aucklanders or New Zealanders in general. This prevents him from becoming an individualist pure and simple, following his own inclinations without any regaid to the accepted standards. He has no ballast, and does not steer a fixed course. He provides the criminal class because he does not form one of the great body of citizens,' whose mutual and average sense of equity and justice is at once the source and the bulwark of law and order. This is Lombroso's fundamental contention, and in itself not unreasonable.

The opposing contention is, of course, that all men are born spiritually and ethically equal, and grow straight or twisted according to their environment. Make all environment healthy and all men will be good," is the scientific position of those who deny that degeneration is anything but the result of bad social conditions. Which contention, also, is not unreasonable; indeed, it has so much in it that every good New Zealander earnestly and sincerely sympathises with every reasonable movement having for its purpose the improvement of environment. We can learn much from the stock-breeders, and every stock-breeder knows that it is very much easier to lose the good qualities of a highly-bred stock than to recover them. The most highly-bred stock in the world is the North European, whose humblest members, when normally healthy, commonly possess the heroic virtues which make them easily masters ot the world.

The- best de ; ry herd in Auckland Province wou.d become only fit lor the butcher if neglected for ten years or less. If it were ill-fed, unsheltered, badly handled and bred anyhow, it would soon become more worthless than scrub cattle whose long-horned progenitors had never become accustomed 16 good conditions. So, undoubtedly, with men. The peasant stock of North Europe is of the blood-royal. The son of the Scottish shepherd, seeking Ins fortune in wide new lands, becomes a builder of Empire, a ruler among his own .- a single generation of Glasgow slum will rot the virility and ability of a breed which is a credit to mankind. What is true of the Scot, is true of the English, the German, the Irish, the Scandinavian, and the rest of the North European brotherhood. We must handle the herd properly if its qualities are to be preserved and improved; otherwise the Chinese long-horn," able to rough it on a handful of rice and a wisp of loin-cloth, will take the place of our North European "short-horn," that sickens where it cannot get wholesome and self-respecting living. But there is something more than environment. Bad conditions will destroy the value of the best dairy herd; but how long must conditions be favourable to convert a mob of scrub cattle to purebred Jersey or Holstein quality? And what will conditions do without selection? And does not the "waster" appear in every herd ? Under the same conditions, in the same human stock, some are better and some are worse. The criminal type is unmistakably fostered by slums, but it appears even in the slums as a "sport." There are good, bad, and indifferent products of every breed in the world. , If we accept the assumption that the average criminal is a man who is not subject to the social influence, there is little difficulty in perceiving that in national war he is not merely likely but positively certain to be a coward. As a pirate, as a brigand, as a robber, under any circumstances in which he fights for immediate gain and for personal gain, he may be as courageous as a savage or a tiger. But set him to fight for a national conception, for a patriotic idea, for something which affects him only remotely and immediately profits him nothing, and how can the man who lacks the "social sense" be brave? The ant and the bee will die fighting for their tribes, but the eagle will only fight, for its own young, and the rat only for itself If a man's heart is not with his people, with their history and their ideals, respecting what they respect and loving what they love, how can he give them his life unquestionably and march into the Great Darkness without understanding why ? There is nothing new in the claim that the good citizen is the good fighting man, for the long records of mankind teach us on every page that the men who are inspired by the vagus principle called " duty" may be annihilated but can never b> routed. Judah and. Greece, Rome and Tyre and Persia were at their best not in their days of grandeur but in the sacred hours when their simple citizens responded to the call of the State, and proved that one good man was equal to a hundred, and that ten could put a thousand to Might. The Dutchman who foiled Spain was a citizen-tighter ; the Englishmen who sailed \vith_ Drake were younger sons; the greatest of all armies, the unconquered, the unconquerable, immortalised itself by returning quietly to the shops and farms, from which dead Cromwell had called it'. The thing is beyond argument. Men can only give their lives with readiness for something they value, and the man who dees not love his State and his nation cannot be brave and devoted for it in war.

"What about the mercenary?" may be asked. Well, what, about the" mercenary ? If a mercenary fights for " loot" has he not pomething to fight- for when victory will lead him to the. sack of cities and defeat will leave him outcast* and depairing? And how many mercenaries, in their exile and their homesickness, have fought valiantly, and died heroically for the honour and glory of the dear land from which thov came? Scottish and Irish, English and German legions, have gone into strange tbattle with the national battlecry on their lips, and the national pride swelling their home-sick hearts. All the world over, aliens and foreigners, trust the British mercenary, because he cannot forget that treachery will brand him among all the kinsfolk whose good opinion he treasures as beyond price. Is it strange that the man who does not care for the good opinion of good men should be criminal in peace and coward in war ?