sed in New Zealand. What is entirely new in New Zealand (and
probably in other places, too) is the attitude of mind of some young
people to sexual indulgence with one another, their planning and
organization of it, and their assumption that when they consent together
they are not doing anything wrong.

Clergymen and publicists in various parts of the world have been
declaiming about illicit sexual practices and their effects on young
people, but this is the first time that any Government has set up a
Committee to sift the available data on sexual misbehaviour with a view
to finding the cause and suggesting a remedy.

While this report was being typed there appeared in the local
newspapers the following telegram despatched from London on September
14:

INQUIRY INTO VICE WAVE IN BRITAIN

A Government committee, including three women, is to open
tomorrow a searching probe into Britain's homosexuals and
prostitutes, to decide whether the country's vice laws should be
changed.

The Government's decision to set up the committee followed
public alarm at the vice wave in Britain, highlighted by a steep
increase in homosexual offences.

The Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, has charged the
committee with considering the law and practice relating to
homosexual offences and the treatment of persons convicted of
such offences, and offences against the criminal law in
connection with prostitution and solicitation for immoral
purposes. According to the police, prostitutes in London alone
have soared to a record of more than 10,000. Convictions for
sexual offences exceed 5,000 a year, compared with the immediate
pre-war total of 2,300. The figures for male homosexual offences
have bounded even more sharply.

The extent of juvenile immorality in New Zealand may have been greatly
magnified abroad. If the good name of this Dominion has been sullied by
these reports, the Committee hopes that any damage may be repaired by
setting out the facts in their true perspective and by demonstrating
that we can, and will, do something in the interests of morality which
may also give a lead to other countries.

_II. Order of Reference and Procedure Followed_

On 23 July 1954 a Special Committee was appointed by the Government with
the following Order of Reference:

_To inquire into and to report upon conditions and influences that
tend to under