so prevalent in the community as to demand urgent measures, but there is
an opinion among women social workers and medical practitioners, whom I
have consulted, that something should be done, and they are in favour of
compulsion under the Act, provided its administration is satisfactory.
There is no doubt that there is a genuine and widespread fear among a
large number of women that, although in the Act itself there is no
discrimination between men and women, in actual practice there will be,
and they fear that the Act will be enforced against 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