Aug. 24, We will be as brief as possible in answering Mr. Spencer's letter. To the question, How do we know that the vote at the 1920 meeting was taken when there was practically nobody there but those in its favour? the writer of this and last Saturday's article was there and very clearly remembers the meagreness of the attendance and the superiority of the vote cast for the Vice-Commission's report. We do not defend ratepayers for their absence: the lack of interest apparently taken in many matters of great public interest is a common matter of regret. At the same time, if ratepayers ate so much in favour of the M..W. Tu. as Mr. Spencer's third paragraph would suggest, one might ask why more people were not there to vote in its behalf in 1920. We know as a fact that even those most actively engaged in social work are by no means unanimous in support of it. To the question, how is it estimated that "prostitution has not decreased"', the answer is, by common experience. Naturally, many of the licensed houses being shut, exact figures are unattainable, but the plain fact of the matter is" that the women are to be found in all sorts of streets where they were previously unknown. The assertion that we recommended toeing the line to the views of morality of the Asiatics among whom we live is a. wilful misreading of the article. Man cannot be made virtuous by act of parliament, we argued: that is impossible anywhere, tenfold so among people who do not hold the same question of virtue at stake that we do. We are glad to hear that the chits signed in order to obtain evidence against certain houses were paid for: the general impression, supported by what occurred in court was quite the reverse. Nobody "instigated'' ofr article and Mr. Spencer's insinuation to that effect should not have been made. As for offering a superior or any other method of suppressing commercialized vice. we cannot. Frankly we do not believe that it can.be suppressed and the results of the. Moral Welfare Tueague's campaign have done nothing to lessen that belief. Certain houses have been shut up it is true: the inmates have merely gone elsewhere. The total achievement of so much energy is merely to chivvy the women from one place to another. That is why we suggest that the Moral Welfare Teague might direct that energy in other channels. So far from these women being made more inaccessible, they are more easily found than before. There is the less distance to go to find _them from any residential district.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.