CREMATION ADVOCATED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20302, 9 July 1929, Page 11

CREMATION ADVOCATED.

"BURIAL MENACE TO HEALTH ■

COMPULSION SUGGESTED. Reasons why the Vicforian Ministry ' should encourage the cremation of - the dead were given to the Chief Secretary, Dr. Argyle, recently, by a deputation representing the Victorian Cremation Society. It w.is suggested that earth burials should be taxed in the interests of public health so that their cost might become prohibitive. The president of the society, Mr. C. H. Lucas, declared that the burial of the dead was undoubtedly dangerous to public health. A portion of the Glenmaggio weir at Stratford covered an oid cemetery, and water from it entered the reservoir containing the drinking water of the residents of tho district. It was known that anthrax germs lived indefinitely on the buried bodies of persons affected with the disease. In those cases, at least, cremation should be made compulsory. Most of the cemeteries in Melbourne were becoming seriously overcrowded, and some of them were in a state of disrepair. Crematoriums should be established compulsorily in all new cemeteries. Cremation was a sanitary necessity, and the Government might tax burials to make the adoption of cremation more general. Dr. W. A. Morrison said that cremation reduced a body to ashes, and whether those ashes were preserved in an urn. or scattered they were absolutely harmless, but burial was always a source of danger to health.

Dr. Argyle said that ho understood that the deputation wanted the Ministry to encourago cremation, not to make it compulsory. He would obtain a report on the subject from the Health Commission. The Ministry was preparing a Cemeteries Bill, and the question of establishing crematoriums would bo considered seriously. The deputation should know that any form of compulsion, either directly or indirectly, would be unthinkable. Religious views had to be treated with respect. Personally he sympathised with the views of the deputation. He could seo no difference between the slow chemical process of disintegration associated with burial and the rapid destruction of a body by fire. He would have inquiries made into the position at Stratford without delay.