FALSE STANDARDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23809, 9 November 1940, Page 14

FALSE STANDARDS

HONESTY AND DISHONESTY MAGISTRATE WARNS YOUTHS WRONG KIND OF PROPAGANDA [by telegraph—own* 'correspondent] WELLINGTON. Friday A warning against the acceptance of false standards of honesty which were being advocated and supported in a certain typo of propaganda was issued by Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court to-day to four youths of 20 years of ago and under who had pleaded guilty to charges of theft. All were employees of the same firm. "I think it is a great pity you four young men should come before the Court for this sort of thing," said the magistrate. "You are quite old enough to know the difference between honesty and dishonesty, and the difference between other people's property and your own. At the present time there is a good deal of propaganda going around which urges people to think they should not respect other people's property. "Yon will find as you grow older that that propaganda is all wrong, and that if you wish to do anything good in this world you should respect other people's property and respect the difference between right and wrong, and honesty and dishonesty."

The accused were all young men on the threshold of life, said the magistrate, and he would accordingly admit them to 12 months' probation and suppress their names.