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same results if vaccination fell into disuse, it follows that we are
of opinion that the State ought to continue to promote the vaccination
of the people. Nor are we prepared to recommend that
the State should cease to require vaccination, and trust entirely
to a voluntary adoption of the practice.
Proceeding the Commission states: —
We do not doubt that the fact that penalties may be repeated
secures in some cases the vaccination of children who would
otherwise remain unvaccinated ; but we believe that the irritation
which these repeated prosecutions create, when applied in the
case of those who honestly object to have their children vaccinated,
and the agitation and active propaganda of anti-vaccination views
which they foster in such cases, tend so greatly to a disuse of the
practice, in the district where such occurrences take place, that
in the result the number of children vaccinated is less than it
would have been had the power of repeated prosecution never
existed or been exercised. This seems to us to be the crucial
question. A law severe in its terms, and enforced with great
stringency, may be less effectual for its purpose than one of less
severity and which is put in force less uncompromisingly. When
this is the case it cannot be doubted that the law which appears
less severe is really the more effective. The ultimate object of
the law must be kept in view. The penalty was not designed to
punish a parent who may be considered misguided in his views
and unwise in his action, but to secure the vaccination of the
people. If a law less severe, or administered with less stringency,
would better secure this end, that seems to us conclusive in
its favour.
Why, it is asked, should not vaccination cease to be compulsory
altogether, and be left to the free choice of parents? If no
penalty were attached to the failure to vaccinate, it is, we think,
certain that a large number of children would remain unvaccinated
from mere neglect on the part of their parents, or indisposition
to incur the trouble involved, and not because they thought it
better in the interests of their children. This appears to us to be
a complete answer to the question. If we be right in the conclusions
which we have expressed on the subject of vaccination,
it is better for the child, and better for the community, that it
should be vaccinated than that it should remain unvaccinated.
A parent can have no inherent right under the circumstances to
which we have alluded to prevent or neglect its vaccination.
The difficulty arises where the parent abstains from procuring
the vaccination of the child because he believes it will be detrimental
to its interests. We do not intend to discuss the abstract
question whether the State is entitled in such circumstances to
compel the parent, in spite of this conviction, to see that his
child is vaccinated; we will assume for the purpose of our
argument that it is so entitled. This leaves untouched the
question whether, on the whole, such a course conduces to a
better vaccinated condition of the people. We think that ardent
advocates of vaccination have not always borne in mind the
practical consequences of an attempt to enforce the law in such
cases. They have maintained that no one has a right to set up