WHITE SLAVERS.

White Ribbon, Volume 19, Issue 224, 18 February 1914, Page 8

WHITE SLAVERS.

(To the Editor.) Madam, —I read the aride in your paper by “J.F," upon the White Slave Traffic, but beyond showing the futility of restrictive laws to curb the social evil and the vice involved in any system of State regulation, they arc not helpful, because the root cause of prostitution is purely economic; the cause is poverty, and until that cause is eradicated the evil will persist, and it is a waste of time to tinker with its effects. Acton on Prostitution says the fallen woman is the child of poverty rather than the daughter of love. To maintain otherwise is a slander on the sex, because woman is far more monogamous than mar, and a life of promiscuous prostitution must be repulsi\e to her, but the pressure of sheer necessity drives her to it. If the evil is less in degree in New Zealand, it is only so because the economic conditions are not so severe here as in older lands, but as the Dominion increases in population the evil will become rampant, because the seed of its fruit is here now. It is the duty of the W.C.T.U. to study the primal cause of the vice if they desire to prevent a repetition of the evil here; and to accomplish this they must widen the scone of their social activities, and not confine their efforts solely to Temperance reform, though 1 endorse their work in that direction. If they study the social problem, and to this end I would advise them to read the writings of Henry George, they will tin that the cause of poverty is land monopoly. This may not be palatable to those persons interested in land investments, but the danger to the public health is so serious in the spread of infectious disease to even innocent people, not to mention its evil effects upon unborn generations, that no sacrifice should be too great for the noble women of the W.C.T.U*. whose motto is “God, Home, and Humanity.” In an address upon this question at the Isaac Hopper Home, a refuge established in New York City for the reclamation of fallen women, Henry George proved that the cause of prostitution was poverty; that it in turn was directly traceable to land monopoly; that the single tax is tl.e only cure for that evil, and that until tha» measure was adopted that rescue work was abortive, since it could not stop the production of fresh viedros whose pander is povertv.- —I am, etc., F. W. BURKE. Ashburton, Jan. 25, 1014. (Our correspondent overlooks the fact that the articles iu question were on “The White Slave Trade,” and not

on prostitution. We agree with our correspondent that poverty is a contributing factor to prostitution, but this canno: be said of the White Slave Trade, which takes its victims from good homes and comfortable circumstances. That traffic is another illustradon of the old law of supply and demand. The demand is the 1 u>t of evil men, and to supply that demand, which pays liberally, men and, alas, women, are found fiendish enough to entrap thousands of innocent girls to a life of hellish torture and a death of shame and agony. 1 hose articles were published to arouse our women to the immense and farreaching nature of this traffic, and to put them on the alert to see it never gets the slightest foothold in this Dominion.—Ed. “W.R.”)