Under Currents

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17365, 29 March 1928, Page 6

Under Currents

jIN THE DRIFT OF LIFE

2Jy ' Stektr. "

THE "SINE QUA NON." "Aweel, mon, whaur's your tuts?" was the reply of the Minister of Lands to a swaggie who loudly proclaimed himself a fellow-member of the clan McLood. The incident happened at Rotowaro. It is not recorded that the other McLeod made the obvious retort, "Alang wi' your claymore and haggis."

* * • •

THE HOWARD LEAGUE

The Howard League, whose Hamnton branch has been doing fine work in providing concerts and lectures for the bays at the Waikeria Borstal, has had a sort of baptism at Wellington, with the Minister of Justice to give his blessing to the Dominion organisation. The League, which aims at reform hi the,treatment of lawbreakers and the prevention of crime, takes its name from the great English reformer, John Howard. It was Howard who, with Elizabeth Fry, helped to bring the English prison system out of its medieval darkness.

• • • •

JOHN HOWARD, PRISON REFORMER. The story of Howard's life is worth telling. His great work was not. begun till he was nearly 50 years old, but his early' manhood was not without incident. At the age of 26 be married his landlady, a widow of 53, out of gratitude (it is said) for her kindness in nursing him through a severe ifhiese. She died three.years later and he went travelling. His ship was captured by a French privateer, these being the war days of 1755, and the crew and passengers were taken to Brest, where they suffered great hardships. Howard was released on parole, returned to England and negotiated an exchange of prisoners. He married again in 1758, but his wife died seven years later. In the meantime he had been alive to the* needs of the unfortunate and had been building model cottages and schools. After his wife's death he travelled abroad for some years. Then in 1773 he was appointed a sheriff. He was not content to see only the court proceedings but looked into the prisons and was shocked and disgusted with what he found there. Gaolers Paid by Prisoners. One of the worst features that he discovered was that the gaolers and warders were dependent for their livelihood upon fees from the prisoners. Men who had been tried and found innocent Were held in durance vile till they should have paid the fees of gaol delivery. He travelled around the country and found the same abuse everywhere—and innumerable other abuses besides. He appealed to the House of Commons and obtained -the release of the' innocent prisoners. Other reforms followed. The filth of the prisons was cleaned away, infirmaries were provided for sick prisoners, the naked were clothed. It was ordered that the underground dungeons were to be used as little as might be- Being a man of means, he printed copies of the reformed regulations at his own expense and saw to it that each gaoler should get one. Next he visited France and exposed some abuses there. Going on to Belgium he found a humane system at Ghent where the prisoners were put to useful work, in the profits of which they had a share. In Holland, too, he found humane treatment and its absence of crime. Reform that Miscarried. Horrified at the disgusting scenes in gaol where prisoners were herded together and spent their time in quarreling and all manner of foulness, Howard appealed for separate cells, and his efforts, with those of Elizabeth Fry', brought about the needed reform. But the cure wan worse than disease. It led to that practice of solitary confinement which is the refined torture of the modern prison system. For that, however, the great reformers are not to blame. Howard later turned his attention to plague prevention. The quarantine system needed investigation, so he deliberately chose to travel on a "fouL ship" so that he might be quarantined. He got his desire, and was in internment at Venice when he got the sad news that his only son-had lost his reason. He returned home, and later worked again among the prisons. Then abroad again, pursuing the cause of public health. He travelled in Russia and Turkey. Having some knowledge of medicine, he was called in to attend a woman afflicted with camp fever, took the disease himself and died of it. So ended the sixty-four years of a man who was accounted an invalid from his youth. Much of the good work that Howard achieved is still to be seen. The prisons of to-day are almost as clean as operating theatres. But greatest of all is the inspiration of his life to others who are concerned that the "smoking lamps" of humanity shall not be quenched but helped to burn with a, bright light.

* * * * \

GOOSE SAUCE IS GANDER SAUCE

Court Bernstorff scored neatly off Mr Baldwin, British Premier, in the disarmament discussions at Geneva. He declared that Germany, as a member of the League, could not fulfil her obligations unless she were adequately armed. That is precisely what Mr Baldwin had said of Britain in his reply to the appeal of Mr Arthur Ponsonby and 128,700 other Britons for the complete abandonment of war. If we were not armed, said Mr Baldwin, "we should be obliged to leave the League." He represented that Britain was under an obligation to provide armed forces to do the League's work. As a matter of fact all that the Covenant says is that the Council of the League shall "recommend" the forces to be supplied by various countries in case of a League war, and British statesmen have frequently laid it down that the League has no power to demand, but only to request. So Mr Baldwin's argument against disarmament was weak, but it provided an excellent opening for Count Bernstorff to point out that sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The Germans have also been pointing to the clause in the Peace Treaty declaring that the enforced disarming of Germany was to be simply a preliminary to a like course on the part of other nations. And why not?

* * * »

"PRACTICAL." "A practical man is a man who practises the errors of his forefathers."— Disxa-fil^