CHASTITY OF WOMEN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18791, 29 May 1923, Page 5

CHASTITY OF WOMEN

BISHOP OF WILLOCHRA’S EXPLANATION [Per Press Association.] WELLINGTON, May 28. The Bishop of Willochra states: With regard to the interpretation I I put on the statement made in the rei port of the committee of the Board of Health, I naturally regret that I jmade a seriously incorrect deduction .as to what that statement really ■meant, but the pleasure that I feel I that things are not so bad as they ■ seemed far outwe ; ghed any personal ■ mortification at being misled. At | the same time I feel that the origiinal statement of the committee was jvery liable to misunderstanding. I and has. as a matter of fact, been I very widely misunderstood. After all corrections have been made, the (statement made by the Board of I Health that 28 per cent, of all first ■ births are extra-martially conceived I is sufficiently alarming and demands I the attention of all Christian people. ■lt must not be forgotten that this 128 per cent, of all first births takes Ino account of the use of contraceptives bv unmarried women, a point by no means to be ignored. STATEMENT BY MR TRIGGS SOME INTERESTING FIGURES. WELLINGTON, May 2«. Mr. W. H. Triggs, chairman of the Venereal Diseases Committee, in a statement referring to the Bishop of Willochra's charges regarding the chastity of women in New Zealand, says not until the Bishop, by a mistake very natural to one not accustomed to handling statistics, drew a too sweeping inference from the [figures, that any public discussion of this particular paragraph of the Committee’s report took place. He suggests it is unfortunate that correspondents in the public press on the subject seem far more anxious to comment on the arithmetical slip made by the Bishop than to help him to rouse public conscience in regard to an evil which is not only under j mining the physical and moral health of the community, but threatening the very foundations of society. “Let there be no mistake about the matter,” he says. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the seriousness of the evil. The Committee in compiling the statistics did not pick out any particular year, but took a series of years which was generally recognised as the proper course. It so happened that the period they took, 1913-21, covers the war period, and it is possible that some of the sexual laxity shown to exist may be attriIbuted to excitement and unsettlement associated with war, but making every allowance, the condition of affairs disclosed is such as to give the gravest concern to every lover of this young country who has any regard for its social and moral welfare. Witness after witness, doclors, social workers, and others, testified to the growing laxity of young I people and the evils resulting therefrom.

In order to eliminate the possibilities of exaggeration, the Committee asked for the exact figures and found that in the period 1913-21 th rye were 10,841 illegitimate births registered, and that out of 23.738 legitimate births occurring within one year of marriage, there were no fewer than 12,23'5 which occurred within the first seven months after marriage, ard which therefore may ba safely considered to have been conceived before marriage. These figures are beyond dispute. It must be observed, moreover, that they comprise only instances in which extra marital intercourse was followed by a living issue. Surely, in the face of these facts, it is futile, if not absolutely criminal, to quibble about percentages, or to charge anyone who refers to so grave a menace as making an attack on the chastity of the women of New Zealand.