We, the undersigned, on behalf of ourselves and others who formerly composed the Halifax Ladies' Committee for the Repeal of the (English) Contagious Diseases Acts, desire to express to you our extreme gratification at your announcement that in the next session of the Legislative Council of New Zealand your Ministry will insist on the "raising of the age of consent" and "the removal of a shameful and objectionable statute."

As regards the latter, we sincerely hope that your colonial Contagious Diseases Act (to which your words doubtless referred) may be totally repealed, and that no measure may be enacted conferring powers for the apparent purpose of suppressing social vice, but capable of being used for its regulation and supervision. We would remind you of the fact that over the Continent of Europe the debasing system of the sanitary regulation of prostitution is carried on by officials entitled "The Police of Morals," in whose hands measures page 5 ostensibly directed against open vice are the principal means of enforcing their shameful sanitary rules.

That you and your colleagues may have the Divine guidance and blessing in your efforts to abolish unrighteous, and to enact righteous, laws, is the earnest prayer of