COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 17 June 1857)

§ MR. GREGORY,
in page 2, line 19, after the word "child," moved to insert, 1944 "or in case of an orphan, then the guardian or guardians, or nearest adult relative of the child," its object being to prevent the child being educated in the principles of a creed to which it did not properly belong.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
submitted that the Bill provided against the danger apprehended by the lion. Gentleman, and thought that the Amendment was wholly unnecessary.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, that the Clause provided that when a child was taken into custody on the charge of vagrancy, the justices might remand it for a week, for the purpose of making further inquiries. He would propose the insertion of words "on the charge being proved," with the view of preventing the child being committed to prison on an accusation of which it might be innocent.

§ MR. MULLINGS
agreed in the proposed Amendment, believing that every precaution ought to be taken against the child's mind being contaminated by being sent to prison.

§ LORD EDWARD HOWARD
thought that some provision ought to be introduced into the Bill to prevent its interfering with the liberty of the subject. Suppose a family passing through a town with the intention of emigration, if one of the children should ask a passer-by for a halfpenny, as the measure stood that child might be sent to prison for three years; and if in the meantime its parents should leave the district, there would be a cruel severance of family ties, which were as strong in a poor man as in a rich one.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, the Bill created no new offence. It merely dealt with laws already existing, and it allowed a child offending against those laws to be sent to school instead of to prison. As for the case of parents emigrating, he would remind the noble Lord that Clause 11 gave the magistrates power to discharge a child on being satisfied that it would he taken proper care of.

§ MR. PALK
thought there ought to be introduced into the Bill a provision that parents should have sufficient notice before their children were disposed of.

§ MR. G. H. MOORE
instanced a case where a family passing through Glasgow 1945 on their way to Ireland, a child of the family was taken into custody, and was committed for vagrancy to a reformatory, and compelled to attend Protestant worship. Proof was offered by the parents that they were returning to Ireland, but the managers refused to give the child up. The right hon. Baronet (Sir George Grey) was then appealed to in the case, and he at once; confirmed the decision, although the case was a most unjust and cruel one.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, he did not remember the case, but he should be glad if the hon. Gentleman would supply him with the particulars. He would then inquire into it.

§ MR. DE VERE
said, that this Bill might not create a new list of offences, but it visited vagrancy with new consequences. He regarded the probable consequences of such a harsh application of the existing law with the greatest distrust.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
reminded the Committee that this was not a penal Bill, but one to provide tutelage and care for those whose parents had abandoned their duties. He had no sympathy with those who desired to preserve the shadow of parental responsibility while they left the chilren to wander about the streets.

MR. BUXTON
said, the parents of the poor were as much attached to their children as any other class. A father of a family might be taken ill, and the mother might be out with her children, one of whom might ask a kind-hearted person to give him a halfpenny, and then some officious policeman might come up and take the child into custody, and that child, if eight years old, might, under this Bill, be torn from its parents for seven years. That might not be an act of cruelty to the child, but he was sure that it would often be one of the very greatest cruelty to the parent.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, that a policeman must not be stigmatised as "officious" because he arrested a person for begging in the street. Such a practice was most injurious, both to the persons who adopted it and to deserving objects of charity.

§ MR. BRISCOE
expressed a hope that children would, under no circumstances, be sent to gaol, not oven on a remand.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, he would undertake to insert words, on the bringing up of the Report, that would render it impossible for the idea of remanding the child to the lock-up to occur to the mind of the magistrate.

MR. HEADLAM
said, the Bill seemed as little harsh either to child or parent as it could be.

THE MARQUESS OP BLANDFORD
thought the clause was really a protection to children against the conduct of persons who were unworthy of the name of parent.

§ MR. FOLJAMBE
thought that a good deal must be left to the discretion of magistrates, who would easily decide whether or not a child should be dealt with under this Act.

§ MR. MAGUIRE
said, that he had known magistrates, both in England and Ireland, act in so oppressive a manner and with so much indiscretion to the poor that he was unwilling to confer upon them in a measure of so penal a nature as this, a jot more power than the House was compelled to allow them. If the men at that house or any other place were to be thrown out of work, an Irishman might be sent back, unless he had been in London five years. Under these circumstances, one of his children, under an overpowering necessity, might go out to beg, and it would be very hard that in that case the father should be deprived of the comfort and solace of that child's society. He was not disposed to allow the magistrates any discretion.

§ MR. DUNLOP
thought there was no danger that one of the results of the Bill would be, that people would send out their children into the streets, in order that they might secure the advantages of this measure. A similar measure had been in operation for three years elsewhere, and no such results as these had come from it. He thought that this Bill would confer a great benefit on both parent and child; while he believed that it prevented them from being oppressed or pressed upon with undue severity by every necessary safeguard. By giving the very trifling security of £1 that the child should not be again guilty of vagrancy, the parent could prevent his child being sent to a reformatory.

§ MR. HACKBLOCK
suggested that the clause should only apply to young persons who are "well-known beggars or vagrants."

§ MR. HENLEY
said, he wished to point out the confusion that would be produced by the language of the clause. The words it contained were "begging or vagrancy," implying that there was a distinction between the two; and thereby creating an entirely new offence. Begging in itself was a species of vagrancy, and was now included under the head of that offence. 1947 Was it intended by this clause that if a child who swept a crossing asked for a halfpenny he should be taken into custody? They were told, indeed, that the Bill was to be restricted to acts already within the scope of the law, but the words used opened a very wide door to laxity of interpretation. No doubt £1 seemed a small sum to be exacted from the parent as security, but it should also be remembered that when a poor man went before a magistrate and entered into recognisances he was mulcted in a considerable amount for fees. With regard to the power of remand, there was no place to which a child could be sent by a magistrate except to a gaol or a station-house, neither of which were suitable for such a purpose. These were all points which required careful consideration, and unless the clause were so amended as to obviate the objections he had indicated, he should have no alternative but to oppose it.

§ MR. BAINES
said, the observations of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) showed that the clause needed revision. He (Mr. Baines) trusted that the hon. Member for Staffordshire (Mr. Adderley) would not consider that the Government wished to oppose the Bill in any way; all they wanted was to make the Bill as perfect as possible, for if its present defects were not removed, the object of its introduction would be defeated. The promoters of the measure did not wish to create a new offence, but to provide a new mode of dealing, in the case of children, with an existing offence. Begging was an offence under the present Vagrancy Act, and therefore the distinction set up by the phraseology of this clause could only produce ambiguity. The place to which children taken into custody under the provisions of the Bill should be remanded ought also to be better defined. At present he feared a magistrate would feel himself compelled to remand a child either to a lock-up prison, or the custody of the police, which he thought was not desirable.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, he was quite ready to omit the words "or begging," and to retain merely the word "vagrancy." He had not adopted the present phraseology of the clause from any love of tautology, but simply because he had felt bound to follow the language of existing local and general Acts against vagrancy. With regard to the other objections taken to the wording of the clause, he hoped, as 1948 they were all agreed on the principle, that the clause would now be passed, and the necessary Amendments reserved till the bringing up of the Report.

§ MR. HENLEY
said, he could not admit that they were all agreed upon the principle. It would be very convenient if the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) would inform the Committee of the nature of the offences specified in the local Acts to which he had referred. He (Mr. Henley) was not aware that the present law distinguished between begging and vagrancy. A great principle was involved in the question whether a child was to be remanded to a gaol or to some other place; and the clause ought to be postponed to enable that point and others to be cleared up.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, he would again express his willingness to insert words on the Report to prevent children from being remanded to prison. If the Committee could not accept that promise let the clause be postponed.

§ MR. BOWYER
said, that the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Hackblock) had hit the blot when he pointed out that the Bill made no distinction between accidental and habitual begging; for he could not but regard the measure, notwithstanding all that had been said, as a highly penal Bill, as it would enable a child to be taken into custody and kept there for a whole week, even though the place of its confinement might not be a prison. It was easy to say that a parent could prevent his child from being sent to a reformatory by going before a magistrate, and giving security against his begging again. But the fact was, that people of that class were too much afraid of the police and the authorities to do this; nor was it so easy as seemed to be supposed, for them to give security even to the amount of £1. Its provisions should therefore be restricted to the case of the habitual vagrant, and ought not to apply to any child who, under the pressure of temporary want, was found begging on a single occasion. As this clause was to be postponed, he wished now to give notice of an Amendment to the effect that when one of these poor children was taken into custody, not only should the parent or the person with whom it was known to have been last residing be apprised of the fact, but that the same intimation should be given to the minister or officiating clergyman of any church or chapel which the child or its parents might have usually, or from time to time, attend- 1949 ed. Such a provision would throw an additional protection around this unfortunate class, and tend to mitigate the evils to be apprehended from the clause in its present shape.

§ MR. BRISCOE
suggested the insertion in this Bill of the corresponding clause from the Scotch Industrial Schools Act as a means of obviating difficulties. That clause empowered the sheriff or magistrate to remand a child for forty-eight hours to the poor-house, for the purpose of instituting the necessary inquiries previous to sending it to an industrial school.

§ MR. PEASE
said that, however favourable he might be to the objects of the Bill, he could not support it, because the means by which it was sought to carry it out trenched so closely on civil and religious liberty.

§ MR. E. BALL
said, he was sorry that so great an authority as the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was against the Bill, but still he thought that the object of the Bill was a humane one. It was to substitute the school for the prison; and he therefore hoped that there would be no objection to so benevolent a principle. There might be objections to particular clauses; but if the measure was sound in principle he hoped it would receive the sanction of Parliament.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, he would consent to postpone the clause.

§ MR. NEWDEGATE
said, he thought it was the wish of the Committee to avoid sending children to prison. He believed it to be desirable to establish a connection between the union and the industrial schools, improving the former in every way in which improvement could be effected.

§ VISCOUNT GODERICH
observed, that this last suggestion came a month too late, and ought not to be acceded to.

§ MR. HENLEY
said, he would recommend, now that the clause was to be withdrawn, that a discretionary power should be granted to magistrates of sending to industrial schools children who come under the provisions of the Reformatory Schools Act. That would greatly simplify the measure, and remove all difficulty as to the class of young persons with whom they should deal.

MR. MILES
said, it would be unjust to place children apprehended under this Bill, and who had committed no crime, in reformatory schools, which were intended for criminal children. Industrial schools and reformatory schools should be kept perfectly distinct.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, that the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) was a very good one, but it could not be adopted at present, because there were no industrial schools in existence, and therefore, if the present system of sending the children to reformatories were altered, serious inconvenience would be the result.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, it was a mistake to say that there were no industrial schools at present. There were several, and if this Bill passed many more would at once come into existence.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
observed, that the clause could not be postponed, as the order of proceeding would not allow that to be done; but if it were negatived, the hon. Member might bring up a fresh clause on the Report.

MR. MILES
said, that it distinctly gave to magistrates the power which he complained of—namely, to send vagrant children to reformatory schools, and he therefore moved its omission.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
remarked, that if Clause 5 had not been struck out it would have been immaterial whether this clause remained or not.

§ MR. HENLEY
suggested that, inasmuch as the very pith of the Bill—namely, the 5th clause, had been struck out, and the clause under discussion, as well as several succeeding clauses, depended upon it, the Chairman ought to report progress.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, he would give up the Bill if the Committee reported progress; for he should not succeed in getting it passed this Session if such a course were adopted. Clause 5 was not the pith of the measure; and if the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) wished to get rid of the measure, let him do so by a direct Motion, and not by a side-wind.

§ MR. MONCKTON MILNES
appealed to the House to let the Bill pass as it stood, because he knew that the hon. Member (Mr. Adderley) had bestowed great pains upon it, and believed that it would be a very useful measure.

THE MARQUESS OF BLANDFORD
objected to a postponement of the Bill, but suggested the withdrawal of clauses from 6 to 10 inclusive, as they were connected with the clause just struck out.

§ MR. HENLEY
remarked, he must disclaim all intention of getting rid of the 1951 Bill by a side-wind. He, however, thought it would be mere waste of time to discuss it until the House knew the nature of the clause to be substituted for Clause 5. He wished the particular offences to be specified for which people were to be taken up. As the Bill now stood, everybody might be apprehended by the police.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) knew well that to report progress would be to reject the Bill.

§ VISCOUNT GODERICH
said, he should not vote for reporting progress.

§ MR. M'MAHON
thought they could not go on with the Bill after striking out Clause 5.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
was afraid that much difficulty would be experienced in proceeding with the Bill after the withdrawal of Clause 5. He would suggest that this clause should be negatived, and then, on Clause 7, they could determine what children it should apply to.

§ MR. BARROW
said that, inasmuch as the Court of Queen's Bench had determined that wherever the word "may" occurred in Acts of Parliament with reference to the exercise of magisterial powers it was to be construed as if it were "must" or "shall," the words in this clause "may send such child to an industrial school," would deprive magistrates of all discretion to dismiss cases if they should think fit. He therefore proposed the insertion of certain words which would enable magistrates to dismiss charges if that should seem to them to be the best course. He should also be disposed to strike out the proviso respecting security, because the parents of such children could not in many instances find such security and pay a recognisance of £1. He thought the magistrate should discharge the child altogether on an assurance of the parent that he would take care of him, or order him to be sent to the school.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, he had no objection to substitute "if they may think fit," for the word "may." He did not think that the provision requiring securities should be struck out, for there was at the present moment a child supported in the Redhill establishment whose father was the owner of six houses in London.

§ MR. BARROW
said, he would first move his Amendment—namely, to add after the word "may" the words "if he think 1952 fit, discharge the child altogether, or." When that was disposed of, he should propose another Amendment with regard to the securities.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
assented.

§ MR. BOWYER
objected to the clause, as introducing an anomaly and a novelty into the laws of England, inasmuch as it would enable a magistrate, in the absence of a conviction, to require a person who had committed no offence to give security for his good behaviour.

§ MR. M'MAHON
suggested that children might be maliciously apprehended under the Bill, and that it was therefore expedient to give magistrates the power of awarding costs to the parents in such cases.

§ LORD LOVAINE
did not see how the parents could be compelled to pay towards the maintenance of their truant children, unless by some such provision as was contained in the Bill.

§ MR. KENDALL
anticipated much evil from the operation of the Bill, in the case especially of honest industrious men with large families, and any one or more of whose children had unfortunately been guilty of crime.

MR. MILLS,
on the other hand, thought that the measure would be a great advantage to the ratepayer. At present there were parents who earned 35s. a week, and refused to contribute to the support of their children in reformatories.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, the Amendment of Mr. Barrow proposed to confer rather a novel power upon the magistrates, though he believed it was already exercised by them in some cases, and therefore he would not object to it. It was desirable, however, to settle that before they proceeded to consider the general effect of the clause relating to the recognisances to be given by the parent for his child's behaviour.

§ MR. KENDALL
remarked that, if the security required by the clause were given by the father, and the child afterwards lapsed into bad conduct within the twelve months, the result would probably be that the father, forfeiting his recognisances, would be committed to prison. In many cases this would operate very oppressively upon the parent, and also very injuriously upon the ratepayers, since of course, if the head of the family were sent to gaol, the family must go to the workhouse.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, the whole tenour of the Bill had reference to children convicted of vagrancy.

§ MR. HENLEY
said, that he considered that remark threw a totally different light on the Bill, which certainly did not convey to him the impression that it was only applicable to children convicted of vagrancy. He objected also to the proposed securities, on account of the oppression which would be exercised towards the father if his recognisances, even though amounting only to a pound, should be estreated. A long and expensive process would be necessary in this case, the end of which would probably be that the sheriffs finding no effects in the man's cottage, he would be committed to the county gaol as a debtor of the Crown, and would only be released after representations made to the authorities in London. Did the Committee think that, under such circumstances, the magistrates would ever order these recognisances to be forfeited? He believed they would not, and that this provision in the clause would be a dead letter; but, if not, it would certainly involve a penalty upon the father (who might not be to blame in the matter), which the Committee did not at all mean to attach. He hoped his hon. Friend (Mr. Adderley) would consent to strike this provision out of the clause.

MR. MILES
agreed in every word which had fallen from his right hon. Friend, with regard to the difficulties attending the security which was to be given for the child's good behaviour. Would it not be better to deliver the child up to the parent upon a written promise from the latter that he would take good care of him for the next twelve months, making the father liable to a fine if the child were a second time convicted during that period? They would thus get rid of the difficulty attending these recognisances.

§ MR. BLAND
urged the postponement of the clause.

§ MR. HENLEY
recommended his hon. Friend to omit from the clause the provision requiring security to be given for the child's proper care and good behaviour during twelve months, leaving the Committee to consider upon bringing up the Report, what other means could be adopted to make the parent responsible.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
assented, and

MR. SERJEANT O'BRIEN
said, that the clause as it now stood, after the alteration just made, rendered a child liable upon a first conviction, no matter how willing the parent might be to enter into securities, to be sent to one of these institutions which, 1954 call them as you pleased, were nothing; more than prisons. Such a provision would infringe most unnecessarily upon the liberty of the subject, and upon the natural relation between parent and child. A verbal promise had been made to introduce certain words on bringing up the Report, but he thought the matter so important, that the Committee ought not to be satisfied with such an assurance, and he suggested the postponement of the clause.

MR. DEASY
said that, as the clause now stood, a child might be brought up before the justices at eight years of age, and sent to one of these institutions for six or seven years, until he was fifteen years old, during which period the parent would be compelled to contribute towards his support. This would be most unjust towards the parent and the remainder of the family, and most unjust towards the child so treated. He, therefore, moved the insertion of words limiting the term for which magistrates might order a child to be sent to an industrial school to any period "not exceeding two years."

§ MR. ADDERLEY
pointed out that by the 12th clause, upon application of the parent, or other persons, the justices were empowered to discharge the child from the school, if satisfied that a suitable employment had been provided for him, or that there was otherwise sufficient cause. This met the objection of the hon. and learned Gentleman, whose Amendment would be a positive cruelty to the child as well as an injury to society, for the child would then be discharged at the end of two years without probably a prospect of employment, or any provision that he would not be driven into the streets again.

§ MR. BOWYER
said, he moved that the Chairman should report progress and ask leave to sit again. Clause 5, which was the foundation of the whole Bill, had been postponed; the most important portion—the very bowels in fact—of Clause 7 had also been postponed, so that they were now debating upon a mere hypothesis, and discussing a Bill which in reality did not exist.

§ VISCOUNT INGESTRE
said, he should oppose the Motion for reporting progress, on account of the interest which was taken in the measure out of doors.

MR. SERJEANT O'BRIEN
said that, if the hon. Member for Staffordshire would 1955 state that there was some security to be given by the parent upon which the child should not be sent to the reformatory, he would not support the Motion for reporting progress. Otherwise he should do so.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, that that should be provided for, and the only difficulty was as to the nature of the security to be given. Upon that point ho should like to consult with his friends who were promoting the Bill. He should be glad, however, to take the sense of the House upon the Amendment which had been moved by the hon. and learned Member for Cork, as to whether the period of retaining the child in the institutions should be restricted to two years or continued till the child reached the age of fifteen.

MR. COWPER
said, that the hon. Member for Staffordshire had shown such a desire to meet the wishes of hon. Members, that it would be rather unfair and uncourteous to persist now in the Motion for reporting progress.

§ MR. HENLEY
suggested that the period should be limited to four years, otherwise the detention might be very lengthened when the child was admitted at an early age. In the Reformatories Bill, five years was the limit.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, that his objection to this suggestion was the same as that which he had entertained to the Amendment which the Committee had just rejected. If the child could be provided for, there was ample power by the 11th clause of discharging him at any moment. But rather than adopt a limit which might result in these children being turned out upon the streets when there was no one to receive them, and which would render the beneficial operation of the measure nugatory, he would throw up the Bill altogether.

§ MR. HENLEY
said, the Bill fixed fifteen years when the child was to be discharged, whereas the hon. Member would rather lose the Bill than agree to discharge the child at fourteen and a half years old. The objection would not hold water; but he (Mr. Henley) should not, however, divide the Committee upon the suggestion.

§ MR. BARROW
said, the Bill was adverse to the principles of English law; for it was imprisonment without the consent of the parties. He gave notice, there- 1956 fore, that on a future stage of the Bill, he should move to limit the period at which confinement in these institutions should cease, to the age of twelve instead of fifteen.

§ MR. GARNETT
said, the question was one of instruction and reformation rather than punishment, and the sooner the children were fit to be passed into the world, the better it would be for them and for the institution. He would, therefore, support no limit.

§ MR. M'MAHON
said, the Bill subjected the parent to liability for the maintenance of his child for an unlimited period; and he could not, therefore, support the Bill except the time was limited.

§ SIR JOHN TROLLOPE
said, the parents were, under any circumstances, bound to support their children. He could not, therefore, comprehend this objection.

§ MR. M'MAHON
said, the Bill imposed charges of conveyance and other charges on the parents, as well as a maximum payment of 3s. a week for a period of seven years.

§ LORD LOVAINE
asked if the hon. and learned Member meant to say that parents were not to be responsible for the support of their children, because all that the Bill said was, that parents should maintain their children either in the schools or out of them? That was all that the Bill said.

§ MR. GREGORY
proposed to insert the following proviso at the end of the clause:— Provided, however, if within the county where the child was taken into custody, or any adjoining county, there shall be any certified industrial school conducted on the principles of the religious persuasion to which the parent of the child in the opinion of the Justices shall belong, and the managers of such school shall be willing to receive him, such child shall be sent to such last-mentioned school, and not to any other.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, that nothing was further from his wish than to tamper with the religious faith of any of the children, and he had no objection to the proposed proviso.

§ MR. HENLEY
asked whether there would be any objection to insert some limit to the distance that the children might be sent from the places where they lived?

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, that if the parents wished to send the children to distant schools beyond the county or the adjoining county, he saw no objection to that being done, provided that the parents paid the expense.

§ MR. HENLEY
said that, as the Bill stood, there was nothing to prevent a child apprehended in Cornwall being sent to Cumberland or Northumberland, and he should like, therefore, to have some limit introduced.

§ LORD LOVAINE
observed, that in the case of vagrant children there would be a great advantage in allowing magistrates to send them to schools at a distance from the place where they happened to be apprehended,

MR. BEISCOE
asked what was meant by the word "parent?"—father and mother, or either?

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, there would be no difficulty on that head. With regard to the question of the right hon. Member, he thought it would be better to trust to the discretion of the magistrates, as was the case in the Reformatory Act.

§ MR. PALK
thought a distance ought to be defined. It would be a hardship on those who were born in thinly populated districts to be sent to manufacturing districts, where these schools would be first introduced, and to be obliged to mix with a race with whom they had no feeling in common, and whose language would be wholly unintelligible to them. [Laughter.] Hon. Members might laugh, but he doubted whether a native of the wilds of Dartmoor would be able to make himself well understood in the highly educated town of Birmingham.

§ MR. G. H. MOORE
reminded the hon. Member that it was to schools the children were to be sent, where the inhabitants of his native county might, by the provisions of the Bill, be taught the English language.

§ VISCOUNT GODERICH
said, that if the children were sent, as appeared from a subsequent part of the Bill, to these schools at the expense of the parents, the magistrate ought to be required to send them to the nearest schools.

§ SIR JOHN TRELAWNY
said, the Bill would place the child, as it were, between two stools, because it would make in many cases the parent its enemy, while he would be sent out into the world without friends.

§ MR. HENLEY
said, he would move another proviso, to the effect that no child should be sent to an industrial school except in the county, or in the county adjoining to that in which he should be appre- 1958 hended. If a child from Cornwall were to be sent to York or Cumberland, the expenses being inflicted on the parent, it would be a great hardship and injury.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, that the best check against sending a child to a distant school was the expense. The expense meant to be thrown on the parent by a subsequent clause was the expense of the child's maintenance, and not the cost of his conveyance to school.

§ LORD LOVAINE
said, the provision would not meet the case of a vagrant child wandering at a distance from the county where he resided.

§ MR. G. H. MOORE
said, the proviso would defeat the object of the Bill.

§ MR. COGAN
objected to the clause as a most dangerous innovation on the constitution of the country and on the liberty of the subject. He would not, however, divide the House on the clause, as the principle had been affirmed by such large majorities; but he could not let the clause pass without recording his protest against it.

MR. RIDLEY
said, the clause only proceeded on the principle of other Bills already in existence. He still was of opinion, however, that the workhouse schools were the proper schools for children to be sent to, but believing he should have no chance of carrying an Amendment to that effect, he would not press it.

§ MR. LIDDELL
said, there was nothing to prevent any well-organized workhouse school from being certified under the Bill.

§ MR. BRISCOE
observed, that hundreds of pauper children were educated at Anerley, in Surrey, and brought up to various trades and employments; and he concurred in the remark that it was to the workhouse schools these children should be sent.

§ MR. SLANEY
said, he thought the country owed a deep debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for North Staffordshire for the attention bestowed on this subject, 1959 but he wished to point out the danger that might arise from the Bill—namely, that parents who were careless of their children might become doubly careless when they knew that the children they neglected would be taken care of by the public, and receive advantages which the children of most industrious and careful people were scarcely able to attain. He therefore thought it important to compel the parents of the children sent to these schools to pay in some way for the support of the children.

§ MR. BARROW
expressed his hope that such alterations would be made in the clause as would enable parents, at any time after their children had been sent to industrial schools, to apply for their transfer to other schools.

§ MR. HENLEY
did not see why, if magistrates determined to send children to Roman Catholic schools, and the parents wished them to be sent to Protestant schools, the parents should be mulcted in the expense of transferring the children to schools where they would be educated in the religion of their parents.

§ MR. BLAND
said, that if a parent, whose child was taken up for begging, was compelled to pay for the removal of the child from one school to another, it would amount to a prohibition.

MR. COWPER
said, the clause as it stood, gave parents the power of objecting to their children being sent to a particular industrial school upon any grounds. They might consider that one school was better conducted than another, and urge the removal of their children in the belief that they would obtain a better education, without any reference to religious teaching; and he thought, therefore, if the clause af- 1960 forded so much latitude, that the parents ought to be called upon to bear at least a portion of the expenses.

§ MR. HENLEY
said, he would propose that after the word "objection" the words "on other than religious grounds" be inserted.

§ MR. ADDERLEY
said, he had no objection to the proposed alteration in the clause.

§ MR. BOWYER
said, he would move the omission of the words "and pays or finds good security to pay any expenses which may be incurred in consequence of his objection." The hon. and learned Member was stating his reasons for proposing the Amendment when