With such thoughts in mind, we would recommend that the Director of Education be asked to confer with the appropriate experts to see how far, and under what conditions, suitable courses of lectures could be provided for parents and prospective parents.
The Special Legislation of the 1954 Session
Following upon the presentation of the Mazengarb report the Government immediately took steps to give effect to those recommendations which called for special legislation. Three Bills were introduced, the first dealing with "indecent publications", the second dealing with child welfare, and the third with police offences.
In our order of reference we were directed to study these pieces of legislation and to report as to their efficacy and as to whether there were any specific amendments that were necessary or desirable.
In the preparation of this part of our report we have had the advice and much valued assistance of the Department of Justice. We deal here with the question of "publications". Our comments as to the Child Welfare Act appear elsewhere in this report. No comment is needed regarding the amendment to the Police Offences Act. First as to publications of a more or less objectionable character circulating in New Zealand.
We set out at some length some portions of the report submitted for our consideration by the Minister of Justice, the Hon. Mr Marshall. Inter alia, it is said:
I. Objectionable Publications in General
"Our survey of the book trade disclosed that there were three types of publication to which particular attention should be given—comics, certain crime stories, and nudist and other suggestive magazines.
(a) Comics: "These are the publications which have attracted most public attention, both here and overseas, and in particular the type of comic known as the 'crime' or 'horror' comic has come in for a great deal of severe criticism. It is true that reading of a mildly bloodthirsty nature directed at the juvenile market is no new thing. The comic books of today, however, are not those of a generation ago, nor are they at all similar to the comic strips now appearing in the newspapers. Many of them are full of matter which is brutal, horrifying, and sadistic, and although to a certain extent they are published for and read by adults of feeble mentality they are also available to children.
"The origin of this type of comic is the United States, but other countries have not been slow to follow suit. Large numbers of comics are reprinted in England and Australia from American plates. The interim report of the Kefauver Committee strongly indicts crime and horror comics and gives some revolting illustrations of their contents. Reports indicate that comics almost as bad were circulating in England before the introduction of legislation there. The nature of crime comics circulating in Canada was responsible for an Act passed there in 1949 prohibiting such comics.