SOCIAL HYGIENE BILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16665, 9 October 1917, Page 4

SOCIAL HYGIENE BILL.

RECEPTION PLEASES MINISTER NO INDEFINITE POSTPONEMENT. [by telegraph.— correspondent.] WELLINGTON, Monday. According to press reports some of the provisions of the Social Hygiene Bill have been received with hostility by some sections of the community. In the House of Representatives this evening Mr. J. McCombs (Lyttelton) asked the Hon. G. W. Russell whether it was intended to put the Bill through before some organisations had time to consider it. The Minister, in reply, stated that an assurance had been given to the House on Thursday last that no attempt would be made to rush the Bill through, but he thought a reasonable time had now been given. He had received from all over the country messages approving of the Bill, and the almost absolute consensus of opinion in favour of ttio Bill on the part of the leading newspapers certainly justified the Government going on with it. If any organisations wished to make representations on the Bill the Government would sympathetically hear any points or suggestions made, bat he considered the session was too far advanced for the Bill to be hung up indefinitely. OPINIONS OP WOMEN. [BY TELEGRAPH, —PRESS ASSOCIATION*.] WELLINGTON, Monday. A meeting of women, representing many societies, passed resolutions on Saturday urging local bodies to make provision throughout the country for efficient, free, confidential treatment of venereal diseases' without penal or deterrent conditions, and advocating the non-compulsory principle' for treatment in all cases, no attempt to be made to enforce treatment, isolation, or detention on any pauper, prisoner, or other person suffering from venereal disease; also, " That the meeting endorses the opinion of the British Royal Commission that if the disease is to be stamped out it is necessary net only to provide medical means of combating it, but to raise moral standards and practices in the community as a whole.-'