§ LORD NORTONsaid, he rose to ask Her Majesty's Government, Whether the Bills standing for Second Reading in this House on the subject of Reformatory and Industrial Schools are intended to have early attention next Session, considering that five years have now elapsed since the Report of the Royal Commission on which they are founded? The Royal Commission had reported that these schools had done infinite service to the country by ridding it of nurseries of juvenile crime. Yet in the course of many years abuses had crept in which impaired the efficiency of the schools and had almost threatened their existence. In many cases parents were divested of the proper care of their children, and this led to a great waste of public money for the maintenance of the schools, and involved a charge on the Treasury of £500,000 yearly in addition to the voluntary contributions that were also absorbed. There were three Bills that stood on the Paper of the House for a second reading, counting two introduced by the Government as one measure, relating to reformatories and industrial schools respectively. These were both consolidating and amending Bills; and they introduced a number of improvements. They would greatly reduce the number of boys sent to reformatories by authorizing the use of corporal punishment for a greater number of juvenile offences. They also proposed to fine parents who were culpable for their children's offences, to make them pay compensation for damage done by their children, and to make them give security for the better conduct of their children. These were all useful provisions, and no time ought to be lost in passing them. The second measure was his own, and it proposed to separate the penal treatment of children from their 624 schooling. The third Bill had come from the Commons, where it had passed sub silentio. It proposed to authorize magistrates either to commit criminal children to prison or to sentence them direct to school. This was a mischievous proposition, as under it there would be two sets of children, equally criminal, so differently treated according to the fancy of magistrates as to render discipline difficult. This Bill kept up the phraseology of sentences to detention in school, which would be analogous to binding for a term of apprenticeship after prison treatment had been completed. He hoped all these Bills would be brought forward and discussed together early next Session, before the Report of the Commission was entirely forgotten, and that they would be introduced first in this House, which had more time to consider them than the other House.
§ EARL BROWNLOWsaid, it was the intention of the Government to re-introduce these Bills early next Session, and he trusted they might be introduced in this House and discussed by their Lordships, who had given great attention to the subject, in time to be sent early to the other House, in the hope that they might receive attention there also.