§ LORD ABERDAREsaid, he rose to ask Her Majesty's Government, When the promised Bill amending the Acts dealing with reformatory and industrial schools will be introduced? He trusted that he should not be considered as needlessly occupying the time of the House if he prefaced his Question with a few explanatory remarks. On March 1, 1882, a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the condition of the certified reformatories, industrial schools, and day industrial schools of the United Kingdom. Of that Commission he had the honour to be Chairman. It included in its numbers, besides many persons of political eminence and of special experience in the question, the present Secretary of War, the President of the Board of Trade, and Lord Norton. It visited many parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, examined many witnesses, and inspected many institutions, and sent in its Report in the autumn of 1883, nearly five years ago. The inquiry had been strongly urged, not by the adversaries, but by the earliest and best friends of these institutions, who alleged that abuses had crept into them which were impairing their usefulness, and would before long damage their credit and imperil their existence. It was impossible to doubt that those institutions had played a very large part in producing that extraordinary decrease of grave crime which had been so frequently remarked upon of late. This must be apparent from the comparative number of juvenile committals in England and Wales between the years 1856 and 1882, the date of their inquiry. These com- 1661 mitments in 1856 amounted to 13,981; in 1882 they had fallen to 5,700, in spite of the enormous increase of population. Their Lordships would probably expect to hear of some corresponding reduction in the number of those institutions and their inmates. But that was far from being the case. The number of reformatories, indeed, in Great Britain had decreased from 62 to 61, while the number of children committed to reformatories, which had attained its highest number in 1887—namely, 1,896—had in 1881 decreased to 1,508. In 1864 there were 4,286 inmates in reformatories. In 1882 the number had increased to 6,601. The number of industrial schools at the time of their inquiry was 120, with every prospect of a rapid increase. In 1864 the number of inmates was 1,668; in 1882 it was 17,614—a more than tenfold increase. Looking at the increase of cost, they found that in 1864 the cost of the reformatories was £96,883; in 1882, £134,204. In the same time the cost of industrial schools had increased from £58,000 to £338,000. He would first deal with the case of reformatories. He had shown the immense decrease in the number of juvenile commitments; and evidence was given by experienced persons, not only of the decrease in numbers, but of the altered character of the youthful offenders—those now committed being, as a rule, of a far less hardened and violent character than formerly. Those committed in recent years, being less deeply steeped in crime and criminal association, were found far more tractable and amenable to discipline and instruction. Yet the numbers committed showed no very sensible diminution, and the Commissioners found themselves compelled to confirm the prevailing impression—that a very large proportion of those committed might have been either treated with slight punishments not involving imprisonment, or, at the worst, committed, when of fitting age, to industrial schools. Among their recommendations would be found the measures they had suggested for securing this object, which he did not think it expedient to enter into at that moment. Turning now to industrial schools, the Commissioners found that the enormous increase in the numbers of these admitted was mainly due to two causes—first, lax administration of the law; secondly, the Elementary Education Act 1662 of 1870, which authorized the committal to industrial schools of obstinate truants. That the administration of the law was not only lax but uneven was strikingly shown by the state of things in England and Scotland. While in England the proportion of the population in industrial schools was one in 7,975, in Scotland it was one in 3,757. No possible reason was averred, or could be averred, why twice as many children should be committed to these schools in Scotland as compared with England. They were informed by numerous witnesses that in Scotland children were admitted simply because their parents were in straitened circumstances; and some of these witnesses expressed themselves as being alarmed at the facility with which parents divested themselves of the care of their children and got them into industrial schools. He did not wish to convey the impression that, because Scotland was the greater offender in this case, England was altogether free from the same mischievous weakness. He now turned to the effect of the Education Act of 1870. In the year 1869 the number of those in industrial schools was 6,974. The numbers steadily and rapidly increased until, in 1882, they reached 17,614—an increase largely due to the committal of truants, who, for this, were frequently condemned to five years' detention in industrial schools, where they were supported almost entirely at the public expense. No doubt it was better for the children, and possibly for the State, that they should be so confined rather than be allowed to run wildly about the streets, subjected to every sort of evil influence. But the question was whether the same objects might not be attained by some form of punishment less disproportioned to the offence and equally efficacious. In the opinion of the Commission, these effects had been attained by the establishment of truants schools, which were established under the Elementary Education Act of 1876. At these schools there was no solitary confinement, but a temporary deprivation of liberty, subjection to regular hours, daily school, much drill, some industrial occupation, and very little play. They were, consequently, intensely disliked. In the excellent truant school established at Upton House by the London School Board the average detention of each boy 1663 was 10 weeks and two days, and it was found that when these boys were released such had been the effect of this brief and stern discipline that their attendance at school became far more regular than that of other boys. He might add that the managers had the power of releasing such boys upon licence after the detention of only one month. Only six such schools had been established at the date of the Commissioners' inquiry. The results were not in all of them equally good, but they came to the conclusion that, in the great majority of cases, they offered a far better form of reformation than the industrial school. Another useful substitute for long detention in industrial schools was provided by the same Act of 1876, which authorized the establishment of day industrial schools, of which there were 10 in England and two in Scotland at the time of the Commissioners' inquiry. In these the detention was longer than in the truant schools, but the discipline was far less severe. The children were fed and instructed; they were detained from an early hour in the morning to 6 p.m., when they returned home; and the Commission were of the opinion expressed by one of the witnesses that that must be a very bad home which was no better than no home at all. The limitation to the usefulness of these schools was, of course, that they were only applicable to large cities, where the population was near at hand. This objection did not apply to truant schools, where the children were lodged. He might enlarge upon the various substitutes which had been suggested and which were, indeed, partly acted upon at the present moment, and which might be extended with promising results, such as the boarding-out system, which largely prevailed in Scotland, emigration far away from former vicious associations and haunts, training ships by which street Arabs were being converted into young sailors. He might insist upon the great attention given by the Commission to the best means of compelling parents to contribute to the support of their children while detained, fed, and educated in these institutions; but he thought he had said enough to convince their Lordships of the pressing necessity for early legislation in the interests of good government, economy, and public morality.
§ LORD NORTONasked, if any Bill to be introduced by Her Majesty's Government on the subject of reformatory and industrial schools would be proceeded with this Session in good time, so that the judgment of Parliament might not be anticipated as to the desirability of a continued separation of such schools from the Education Department by any new arrangement of local government? The separation of these schools under the Home Office as matters of police, distinct from other schools, was seriously counteracting the great good which, nevertheless, they have done, and which any care of neglected children must do. With respect to industrial Schools for neglected children no reason could be given for their separation from the School Department. If after due punishment had been inflicted for any crime committed by children, the education in Reformatories was so given that the whole term of education was treated as a police detention, the main object of this very costly rescue from criminal life, in obliterating all criminal association and freely opening employment in industry, was frustrated. The child grew up as a criminal, and even the State threw away and wasted the training which it had been giving at great cost. In 1882 a Royal Commission was urged by Government to look into the working of these Home Office schools, on account of the abuse and waste they were incurring. For four years the Report, so pressed for, had lain neglected, while its object had become more pressing than ever. The Report recommended a transfer to the Education Department of the inspection and aid of these schools. It deprecated the great disadvantages the teachers laboured under in consequence of their detachment from the Education Department. It suggested that only a few special reformatories were wanted for serious juvenile criminality, and that industrial schools should be wholly free from criminal taint. The Managers of these schools seemed inclined to suffer this injury to their work to continue, because they feared the too literary kind of education of the Education Department, and many of them, therefore, would put up with separation from it to keep the schools in their own management. It was curious that 1665 at the same time the Education Department was turning to the more industrial and technical sort of education given in these schools. Surely it were wiser to make the School Department suitable for all publicly supported schools than to separate some of the more important schools from the Department as unsuitable for them. Let schools be schools, and prisons prisons, and complete the amended treatment of reformatory and industrial schools, in the Bill proposed, before stereotyping their separation from the School Department by placing them under the new Councils.
§ EARL BROWNLOWsaid, the Government were fully alive to the vast importance of the subject which had been brought before the House by his noble Friends. At the end of last Session the Government had undertaken to deal with the subject, and with that view two Bills had been prepared which would be introduced before long. He could assure his noble Friend that he need have no fear of the judgment of Parliament being anticipated on this matter by any provision of the Local Government Bill, and he could promise that the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Bills would be introduced in time to enable any necessary Amendments to be moved in order to make the two Bills coincide. While not able authoritatively to make an announcement on the point, he might say that unless some financial considerations rendered it necessary that the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Bills should be introduced in "another place," looking at the state of Business in the House of Commons, he thought it probable that they would be brought forward in their Lordships' House.