st women, and
particularly immoral women, while the men concerned will be allowed to
go free. This fear arises partly from the remembrance, particularly
among elderly women, of the old Contagious Diseases Acts, both here and
in England, and partly from the reports of the working of compulsion in
Western Australia and elsewhere. I am of opinion that there is no
serious ground for fear in view of the changed attitude in the public
mind in connection with these diseases, the fuller knowledge that people
generally have, and the high status of women in our country; also the
ready access that all persons have to the protection of the law and the
Courts in the event of false information being given, and the safeguards
embodied in the Bill as I understand it is drafted. My view is that the
objection to the compulsory clauses of the Bill would be removed in the
opinion of many women if women patrols or women police were appointed,
so that the administration of the Act in its compulsory clauses wherever
it treated women could be in the hands of those women officers."

Among the witnesses questioned on this subject there was an overwhelming
preponderance of opinion that the time had now arrived for the adoption
of notification of all cases of venereal disease by number or symbol, if
only for the purpose of getting more accurate statistics; the
notification by name of those recalcitrant patients who refused to
continue treatment until cured; and compulsory examination of those whom
the Director-General of Health had good grounds for believing to be
suffering from the disease and likely to communicate it to others, and
who refused to produce a medical certificate as to their condition. Only
three medical men expressed themselves as being against these proposals.
On the other hand, the lady doctors examined (two of them members of the
National Council of Women, and the third representing the Young Women's
Christian Association) gave evidence in favour of conditional
notification, and compulsory examination, and compulsory treatment of
recalcitrants. It should be added that all the witnesses who were
engaged in rescue work, or other work bringing them face to face with
the horrors of venereal disease, were most emphatic in their opinion
that compulsory notification and treatment should be adopted.

It is noteworthy that when the notification of ordinary infectious
disease was first proposed in England almost exactly the same arguments