A Social Evil— A National Peril

White Ribbon, Volume 48, Issue 6, 18 July 1942, Page 1

A Social Evil — A National Peril

Once more war lias brought in it* train moral degeneration, and as in tiltlast war. Government is trying to stop the spread of venereal disease without touching the cause. There is one cause for this disease and that sexual promiscuity, and every army and navy doctor during the last war blamed alco tol for the cause of this evil. Ihe same cause

is again operative now. A U.S.A. journal in Virginia asks this pertinent question: “How do you expect StateGovernor or anyone else to control the conditions to which you refer, so long as liquor is permitted to How so freely in defence areas? .... Surely you must know that to try to curb vice with liquor available on every hand is about as intelligent as to try to dip water from a basin without first stopping the How of water into the basin. . . . What more is expected than that vice should flourish where such conditions prevail.” But again the Government refuses to face this question and its regulations of 1941 though applying to persons who infect others with V.L). vet m administration are most unjust.

Already in our cities magistrates are sending women to gaol for associating with men and infecting them with disease. But what about the men who are infecting young girls in their early teens, why is not the magistrate equally severe upon them ? These regulations, with compulsory examination, are the thin edge of the wedge and unless women wake up to protect their daughters we shall have once more Regulation and the C.D. Acts which the W.C.T.U., after a long fight succeeded in removing from our Statute Book.

The International Abolitionist Conference meeting in Rome after the last war passed the following resolution: “The conference believing that* the most effective methods for combating

venereal maladies are as follows: (a) Reform of social life and true education; (b) Provision of free confidential treatment; is persuaded that compulsory treatment cannot be enforced impartially and therefore affirms superiority of non-compulsory over all compulsory measures.”

We strongly urge all women to stud) this question, and not be led away by plausible theories even if they issue from the magisterial bench. Study specially these aspects:

(1) To punish only the woman is lowering the dignity of womanhood. In steed of a man and woman who bylove have of “twain become one flesh,” joining with God for the creation of a new life, the founding of home

and family, women are to be just a machine for men’s pleasure, and when diseased by his use of her is to be put in gaol while he is left free to disease other women and girls.

(Z) All statistics prove that where treatment is voluntary and confidentials, patients go in the early stages o: the disease when it yields most rtadily to treatment and also when it is most infective. Only a little while ago an Australian medical journal spoke of the failure of compulsion iti their States.

(3) When regulation is in force, when prostitution to use our magistrate’s words is “not driven underground” then the White Slave traffic flourishes The womanhood of Great Britain rose in revolt against this traffic nearly half a century ago, and when \V. T. Stead proved that girls of 12 years of age could be bought for immoral purposes then, in the words of history, “an indignant nation thundered at the gates of Parliament and demanded the raising of the age of consent, and it was raised to 16 years of age with a celerity almost unknown in British Parliamentary procedure.”

Dr Arthur, a member of. N.S.W. Upper House, during the last war, when told that prostitutes wcTe necessary to guard other women from assault, said, “Then these women instead of being looked upon as degraded should be honoured as the saviours ol their sister women.”

The horrors of this White Slave traffic still are with us. Brian Stuart, F.R.G.S., has written of his experiences when he was employed in the vice-consulate office at Oran. From his book, “Adventures in Algeria,” published in 1936, we quote the following par. The murders of which he

speaks were committed tu 1935 and 1936:

“if it were not for the Official Secrets Act I c mid tell of a few stories of White Slavery, and a few facts ami figures on that unsavoury subject which would make some of the Sunday papers burst out into special editions. n»e decoying of young girls for service in foreign biothels i> anything hut ‘dead’ or a thing of the past. The traffic in bodies and souls is an active menace in Great Britain, and in Carditf and London in particular. 1 have tried over and over again to persuade newspaper editors to wake up the public on this matter. So far my efforts have been rewarded only by an article published in the ‘Sunday Despatch’ and one in the ‘Empire News.* Editors do not like to touch it, and one actually said to me: 'We prefer to pretend that the White Slave traffic does not exist. A footnote adds: “Since this sentence was written, the series of murders in Soho and the revelations following the inquest on Max Kassel have shown the accuracy of iny assertions.” The Victorian bran:li of the B.M.A. at its conference gave this resolution: “Chastit/ is the only absolute saleguard against venereal diseases. The l»opular idea that continence is injurious to health is erroneous.** We speak of a new era and a new world after this war. Is that world to have the licensed liquor trade and licensed prostitution ? How then can it be any better than the old world? The “National Voice,” a U.S.A. exchange, sums up the situation in the following sentence: "if our country will do as did the Nirtevites, as recorded in Jonah 3rd chapter, we need not fear the result. But if we do not cease indulging in the quartet of sins—drinking, dancing, gambling and adultery—sins that almost always go together—then there is nothing that will prevent the downfall of our nation.” The history of alcohol, used a leverage— Brigadier General E. P. Crozier, C. 8., C.M.G., D.S.D.: “If ever this country again becomes embroiled in a fight for its existence, which God forbid! the manufact ire, sale and consumption of all spirits should be controlled by law. Many colonels, majors, captains and subalterns, in my own knowledge, rendered themselves useless for war at various times in France owing to their taking too much strong drink.