MORAL DRIFT

Southland Times, Issue 19510, 9 May 1922, Page 2

MORAL DRIFT

DEPRAVITY AND VICE. A STRONG INDICTMENT. AUCKLAND, May 3. A striking address, in which attention was drawn to the dangerous level of the moral tone of the community, was delivered by Mr E. C. Cutten, S.M., before the Anglican Synod this afternon. Mr Cutten, aa president of the Young Citizens’ League, and Mr Horace Stebbing, as organising secretary, waited upon the Synod in order to acquaint its members with the aims and objects of the movement. Those who were in touch with the civil and criminal courts, of the country, said Mr Cutten, knew that they were being continual!/ besieged by cases of dishonesty and cases showing impurity of life. The few cases that appeared in the newspapers were a mere symptom of the real state of affairs. The condition of the community showed a terrible state of inefficiency from the material point of view, and a very terrible state of affairs from the spiritual. The effect on the women showed it, said Mr Cutten. Women had made a great struggle for rights and freedom and culture, but these were material things, and not spiritual. The result was that they did the same as a man, and entered upon a mad search for wealth and pleasure. As an illustration of the prevailing tone, Mr Cutten said that every time a moving picture adapted from a book of the sex type was shown in this city, there was a ready sale for the book at the bookshops, and he had been assured by one who was in a position to know that 90 per cent, of the purchase of such books were girls or women. He had been informed by a leading criminal lawyer in Auckland that the class of cases which were giving the legal profession most trouble were sex cases. "You will see,” said Mr Cutten, “that this implies a more terrible state of affaire than was at first realised. I cannot impress it upon you too strongly. At the Magistrate’s Court one day each week was reserved for the hearing of maintenance cases.” “It is called ‘agony day,’ said Mr Cutten, “and it is agony. Last Friday two Magistrates were doing the work all day, and another for half a day, and then they did not finish the work.”

"Nowadays our women are so busy with work that they make for themselves that they have not got time to do the work which God gives them to do in this world,” Mr Cutten continued. “ The moral progress of humanity depends on our women. Every man is the outcome of women’s training, yet this seems sometimes to be overlooked. In most homes the training of children was throw'n upon the school teacher, and later their religious instruction upon the Sundaytichool teacher. But it waa between the ages of one and ten when the real character of the child was founded. There was no place where they could get the influence that formed character best than in the home, and such influence did not exist today. “I want to tell you,” continued Mr Cut ten, “that the stability of the country is in danger. Stability depends upon public opinion—the opinion of the great majority. Do not imagine that the community is kept in order by a standing army- we have not got one—or by the police, who prevent some members of the community interfering with other members of the community.” The country depended for its solidarity on the large bulk of the people, but down below there was a large, undesirable element. At the present time this element was increasing in size, and the majority of the people on whom the community depended was decreasing in size. More serious still was the fact that there existed an inter vefiing party of people who did not cure for anything. This condition nf affairs meant forgetfulness of God. The Young Citizens' League had come* to the conclusion that great ends could not be attained by material means, nor could happiness depend upon material things. In education the spiritual w r as not being touched upon. The Boy Scout movement had become an organisation instead of a movement, and the same thing applied to religion. To many religion was a mere matter of form, but religion was a matter of the heart, and the heart only. There was only one way in which trouble could be met, and that was by the proper education of the young. Mr Cutten explained the constitution and object® of the Young Citizens’ League, and said that it vras definitely a religious institution, because it endeavoured to teich reverence and Christian service.

The Primate (Bishop Julius) said that no subject gave the Church more anxiety than the present condition of the Dominion, and the means by which that condition might be improved. They were very thankful for any institution which recognised these conditions, and tried to improve them. He was at one with the deputation in desiring to bring a better tone into our social life through the manliness of the children, and wrerever people were working for those ends, they had the support of every member of the Synod.