TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 22131, 27 September 1933, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Treatment of Criminals. Dr. Maurice Hamblin Smith, who has just retired after 33 years’ prison service, speaking at a luncheon of the Howard League for Penal Reform in London, said that psychology must play an important part in the treatment of criminals in the future. In the prisons it was not the crime that was being treated but the individuals. “The whole secret,” he said, “lies in the patient, intensive investigation of the individual, and I would stress the necessity of making that investigation in future before sentence. Once a man has been sentenced there is always an anti-social grudge which handicaps those responsible for dealing with him. Unless we use all the resources which are at our hands .in modern psychology we are not doing our best for oui - patients and we are not doing our best for society. I have no desire to make pets of criminals. It is because society now, to my mind, is most inadequately protected that I am pleading for a change.”

Militant Atheism.

The Duchess of Atholl, in her address at the 134th annual breakfast of the Religious Tract Society, said: “We are beginning to realize that the new political system which has held a great European and Asiatic country in the last few years is an inveterate foe of religion in every form, and we have lately realized that the hostility to religion in Soviet Russia is not confined to religion in that country; it has spread into an international movement against religion in every form. It has taken definite shape in Britain in the last few months in the form of a League of Militant Atheism. But quite apart from this we must be aware of the many ways in which influences hostile to religion or morality, or what I might call normal patriotism, are creeping into much of our literature, notably literature intended for the use of young people.” Some of the literature misrepresented all ordinary ideas of justice and order and decency in a Christian land. They could not over-estimate the importance of clean literature to counteract this baneful influence, and she thought they ought greatly to prize Christian'instruction in as many schools as possible. Religious instruction in the grant-aided schools was in a stronger position as a whole to-day than at any time within the memory of people now living. Perhaps it was just because so many attacks were being made on religion and Christian ethics that there was more general recognition of the value of religious instruction than was the case some years ago. At all costs

Christian foundations at home must be preserved. The trunk of the old tree of the Empire must be kept sound if the outlying branches were to be all that was desired.

Socialist Programme. In an editorial article upon the Socialist programme in Britain, as revealed in recent pamphlets, The Times says: It is a little disquieting to observe that our prospective dictators, though not alarmed by the admitted difficulties of their task, will bring very little originality to it. Every one of their ideas down to the smallest detail is borrowed and (unless it be assumed that they have been inspired by Sir Oswald Mosley) borrowed from abroad. Most of them hail from Russia, including the idea of a politically ruthless party caucus, possessing a monopoly of place, power and rights; but the tactics favoured appear to be copied from Herr Hitler. This is the more surprising because Mr Brailsford has written a companion pamphlet entitled “The Nazi Terror,” commenting in very severe terms upon such matters (apart from personal violence) to the dragooning of the Press, the manipulation of constitutional forms and the political and economic intimidation of opponents. But when the same measures are taken in Russia, the Socialist intellectuals call them a great and interesting experiment, and incorporate many of them (though not, of course, the use of physical violence) in their policy for this country. “We cannot,” says Mr Cole, “put limits to the degree of dictatorial power which, under stress of the emergency, our Socialist Government may have to assume. What is Satanic in Germany would be “rallying the nation to the service of the working class” if practised in this country. This differentiation of the verdict upon political systems according to the complexion of the party in power is the last infirmity of distorted, minds; and the picture of Great Britain under the new Socialist dispensation would fully merit the description which Mr Brailsford gives of Germany— a great country rattling back to barbarism.”