“MENTAL SICKNESS”!

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25301, 11 August 1943, Page 4

“MENTAL SICKNESS”!

Sir,—The sentencing of James Hector McAulay to life imprisonment for the brutal murder of a woman may cause Mrs Stewart, M.P.. to contend that here was another instance of “ mental sickness, and that the object of the Labour Government should be to cure this “ mental sickness.” This was her argument, at any rate, when the abolition of capital punishment and of flogging was decided on by the Government. The method by which this so-called sickness should be 'treated was not explained by Mrs Stewart. The tragic aspect of this sickness is that it prompts the person suffering from it to kill somebody else, and surely Mrs Stewart is not going to argue that by this killing the alleged sufferer effects a cure for his convenient mental sickness? I often wonder what the Labour Government would do to a traitor in New Zealand who gave information to the enemy and brought about the sinking of a transport with the loss of the lives of hundreds of our soldiers.- Probably it would not itself know what to do except to say that he must not suffer capital punishment. I have, however, a pretty good idea of what the people of New Zealand would say,“and do, if such a tragic thing were to happen.—l am, etc., Bewildered.