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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 3
Favourable Report of the House of Commons
Favourable Report of the House of Commons.
"Although the Act has only been in operation two years and a half, and at some stations only seven months, strong testimony is borne to the benefits, both in a moral and sanitary point of view, which have already resulted from it.
"Prostitution appears to have diminished—its worst features to have been softened—and its physical evils abated."
—P. iii.
"Your Committee would remark, in conclusion, that whilst, for the reasons stated at the commencement of their Report, they have confined their investigations to the object of securing greater efficiency in the treatment of these diseases at Military and Naval stations, they recommend that further inquiry, by a Committee appointed early in the next session, should be instituted with the view of ascertaining whether it would be practicable to extend to the civil population the benefits of an Act which has already done so much to diminish prostitution, decrease disease, and reclaim the abandoned.
"Your Committee have examined Mr. Simon, the medical officer of the Privy Council, as to the nature of the evidence winch should be prepared before this question is referred to a Parliamentary Committee, and they recommend that his suggestions on this head should be adopted by Her Majesty's Government."
In consequence of these strong recommendations, it is probable that another session will not pass without the Legislature enacting some measure for the extension of the Contagious Diseases Act to the civil population. In the face of this possibility, it seems of the highest importance that the question, how far such an extension is desirable or possible, should receive very careful and accurate consideration at the hands of the profession and the public, and I am anxious to assist the progress of the discussion to the utmost of my power.
The passing of the Contagious Diseases Act is a step in the right direction; it is an effort, and, as the parliamentary reports, to which I hare alluded, show, a successful effort to mitigate a great physical mischief. In considering the attitude which a civilized community should assume towards prostitution, the nature of the evil must not be lost sight of.