Lords Sitting of 28 April 1890

NEW PEER.
Sir William Ventris Field, Knight, Into one of the Judges of the High Court of Justice, having been created Baron Field, of Bakeham, in the County of Surrey—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS BILL.—(No. 52.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Viscount CROSS): My Lords, it is not my intention in asking your Lordships to give a Second Reading to the Industrial Schools Bill to take up much of your time, because it was introduced last year, and was then referred to the General Committee on Law. That Committee made certain alterations in the Bill, and the measure which I have now the honour of asking your Lordships to read a second time is for all practical purposes the same Bill as that which came down from that Committee. There are in it one or two alterations which it is perhaps only fair that I should name to your Lordships. In the 3rd sub-section of Clause 10 an addition has been made, so that the Court may require the parent of a child alleged to have been found under any of the circumstances mentioned to produce the child before the Court. The provisions for the due observance of a child's religion have been slightly strengthened, as it has been thought wiser that that should be done; and there is also a provision with regard to the emigration of children, requiring that certain securities shall be taken before the child is emigrated. The chief alteration is in Clause 25, imposing the obligation upon counties and boroughs to contribute to the schools. That provision which was struck out by the Committee last year has been re-introduced. It has been thought much better that that should be made compulsory upon the Local Authorities, who
  1494
  will get the contributions which would otherwise have gone to the Treasury and which the Treasury is prepared to give up. Then the present measure charges upon the Police Authorities instead of on the County Councils the expense of conveying children to the industrial schools and of their removal from one industrial school to another. It also enables the Secretary of State, as well as the President of the Local Government Board, to appoint boarding-out schools, and takes away from the County Councils the power of contributing to truant schools. Further, the School Boards are no longer required to obtain the permission of the Secretary of State. The alterations which have been made are very simple, and I do not think I should be justified in taking up more of your Lordships' time in moving the Second Reading of the Bill.
  *LORD NORTON: I will ask your Lordships to be kind enough to allow me to make a few observations with regard to this and the other two Bills affecting reformatory schools and juvenile offenders, for they really stand together and form one piece of legislation. It is a subject to which I have devoted time and care for now nearly half a century, and I think I may clam some credit for experience and knowledge of the question, having myself drafted the first Act, besides having- since conducted through Parliament other measures dealing with it, and also having founded institutions under their provisions. The noble Viscount has said that these Bills are much the same as those which were introduced last year. But those Bills were subjected to very little debate except in Standing Committee, although your Lordships will allow that they proposed a very material improvement in the existing law. These Bills are partly for the purpose of consolidating of the existing law and partly of amending it. The Amendments make a clearer distinction between the education and the police treatment of these children; secondly, they deal with the ages of the children to be received into these schools; and, thirdly, they make a very material improvement by placing in a separate Bill the penal portions of the existing Acts. I only desire that the spirit of these Amendments should

  1495
  be fully carried out. I only want these schools to be entirely schools, and that care should be taken to separate the punishment of such children as fall into crime from the education of their whole childhood afterwards. Where necessary to be inflicted punishment should be separate from the education to be given them, for the purpose of getting the children out as soon as possible to earn their own livelihood. The alterations which would carry out this view are chiefly matters of mere phraseology, yet they would, in their effect, be of the greatest importance. Instead of sentencing or committing children to these schools for detention for long periods, many of them being merely homeless or the victims of bad company, they should be put under the care of (or apprenticed if you like) to the industrial schoolmasters, and kept in the schools, not for terms of years, but simply until the master shall report that they are qualified to go out to work, and that proper work is ready for them. Children of more serious or hardened criminality should be differently treated, and with more serious punishment. But those are a very small minority, and not at all in the description of this Industrial Schools Bill. None under this Bill have been convicted of any offence; and they are chiefly chargeable with being homeless and guardianless, The object of the State must, therefore, be to provide them with that education and care, the want of which has led them into criminal associations. What seems to be obvious in this matter is the extremely suicidal policy of the State in loco parentis connecting these schools with the Police Department, and the penal character given to the education of the children whom they want to rescue from all taint of crime, The most singular reasons are given for maintaining the prison phraseology of these Acts. A Minister said to me the other day, "How is it possible to treat these children differently, because they art under sentence and are committed for detention?" Would it not be more sensible to change that phraseology, and not sacrifice to it the great object in view? In the debate upon these Bills last Session it was said that these children having from neglect got into evil and degraded habits required a special kind of educa-
  1496
  tion. What is the speciality? Simply that it is more industrial. There is no other difference whatever from the education given in our national schools, and singularly enough, this speciality is the very thing which it is now considered desirable to introduce into those schools. Others say, again, that these schools must be corrective. All education is corrective, and these schools being correctional from evil habits does not make them cease to be educational, but only a special kind of schools, placing them in a category of national education by themselves. People should consider the mischief done by placing these institutions under the Prison Department. In the Royal Commission, of which I was a member, we devoted two years not only to the investigation of the subject in London, but to travelling through the three Kingdoms in a thorough inspection. The Report of the Commissioners shows how imperfectly public opinion has advanced from the time when we treated criminal and outcast children as responsible adults; yet although the evidence led to taking a wider view of the subject, it only succeeded to draw them half-way, and it was proposed that these schools should be submitted for inspection half in the Education Department and half in the Police Department But I observe that in the Bills now before your Lordships this particular recommendation of the Committee has not been adopted, no doubt because it is clear that the schools should be under one Department or the other, and not under two Departments; for it is quite obvious that a dual superintendence must be fraught with difficulty. On that ground the recommendation of dual treatment for these schools has been omitted from this Bill, and the schools are left wholly under the Police Department. Your Lordships will say, if there is no practical mischief done to schools by prison discipline, it does not much matter what the terms of the enactments are? Is there no practical mischief arising from education being described and treated as imprisonment? In the first place, it bars to a great extent the very employments for which these children have been trained at great cost to the public. These Bills to

  1497
  a great extent propose to diminish this evil, and to open the Army and apprenticeships to trades to these children; but, still, as far as a actual penal character is given to these schools, it makes the inmates feel that they are stigmatised and classed as criminals, many of them having no more criminality about them than any of your Lordships would have if brought up in the same way when young. They feel conscious that in public opinion they are classed as criminals, just as children brought up in pauper schools have been degraded in their own and others' estimation by being classed as paupers. The day industrial schools are actually acknowledged as national elementary schools, and that goes a great way towards admitting my argument. There must, of course, be a certain difference in the mode of treating utterly neglected children, but essentially they will be educationally the same. It is rather a curious thing that the Education Department are, by the 4th clause of this Bill, empowered to make arrangements with industrial schools. So that, my Lords, we are very slowly getting into an acknowledgment of right principles in this matter. There has been a very great abuse from indiscriminate use of industrial schools, especially in Scotland and Ireland, as shown in the Report of the Commissioners, and an enormous waste of Treasury support, so great that it would be almost better to abolish them than to allow them to go on under present conditions. The alterations which I shall try to introduce into these Bills when they go into Committee are, first, to check the multiplication of various kinds of schools. With regard to truant schools I shall propose to strike out the whole of those clauses from this Bill. What on earth are truant schools? The term suggests a punishment, not an institution. What is the equivalent of the Truant School at Eton? The birch. The Bill does propose to modify this grotesque imposture of truant schools, and to a certain extent they are to be maintained, but I shall protest against more of them being provided for. I should prefer to abolish them altogether; there are only six. I shall, secondly, try also to get the Committee to alter the prison phraseology. There is a very great improvement in this Bill in one
  1498
  respect, and that is, by introducing a better mode of enforcing payment by parents against their shameful relief of themselves from the cost of supporting their children. It is said that the children would be of use to the parents, and to that extent the parents suffer; but to the extent to which parents are relieved of their obligations there is great mischief by encouraging neglect, and by promoting pauperism in too easy an access to industrial schools. I am glad to see that this Bill proposes to make Local Authorities liable for the cost of the children's maintenance, leaving them to recover that cost from the parents. If any parents are thought too poor to pay anything, it may be pointed out that the children must have cost them something to maintain at home. Where a child who has incurred a punishment has a decent home, he should, after being punished, be sent to it, and not to an industrial school. The law will then compel him to attend a national school. By the operation of the present process of penal detention, children are kept at school to an age far beyond that at which they should go out to work. A large number of youths of 18 to 21 are kept at these schools injuring the younger scholars, and growing unfit for work themselves. They are being spoiled for work. The 20th clause for apprenticing to trades, and otherwise disposing of children at an earlier age, and with regard to enlistment in the Army, will, to some extent, neutralise that mischief, and the encouragement of emigration, which is the best of all treatment in many cases. I beg pardon of your Lordships for having trespassed so long upon your time'; but. I do think I have called your attention to points of importance. The separate Bill for penal treatment, alternatives for prison, and the removal of discretion in magistrates as to prison treatment of children are improvements of the Bills of last year. It is to be hoped that County Councils will ake up the subject.
  *LORD MONKSWELL: My Lords, I do not propose to follow the noble Lord opposite in his criticisms on these Bills. I think they are excellent measures, and the only object I have in rising is to urge Her Majesty's Government to take a little more interest than they do in

  1499
  this subject. For that purpose I propose to say a few words on the urgency and importance of these measures, and also upon the dilatoriness, to which I desire the attention of the House, of Her Majesty's Government in regard to them. I am sorry to say that I believe the apathy of Her Majesty's Government is shared to a great extent by the public at large, though I do not think that is due to any want of heart, but simply to ignorance of the subject. I believe the public are perfectly well aware, and no doubt the Government are aware, that these schools are carrying on a great work; but I doubt whether Her Majesty's Government realise the very serious and grievous obstacles which are placed by the present law in the way of the managers and officials of those schools in carrying out the duties entrusted to them; and I do not think the country knows or realises how very serious and deplorable is the result of those obstacles which are placed in the way of the industrial training given in those schools. Still, the public are tender-hearted towards children. In the last Session an Act of Parliament was passed by universal consent for the better protection of children, who are now protected almost as well as the law can protect them against the infliction of violence, brutality, and starvation upon them by unnatural parents. But children are not protected against other forms of cruelty, which inflict even more lasting harm upon them than blows and starvation. Under the present law it is the case that at the age of 16 a parent can claim his child from an industrial school, even though he is to the last degree vicious and depraved, even though he has himself compelled the child to commit the offence for which he was sent to the school, and even though he has not paid one penny towards the expense of that child's maintenance while he was in the school. This Bill, my Lords, raises very much the same question as was raised in your Lordships' House last Friday, namely, that of parental control—the right of a parent to compel his daughter to go upon the streets, and to compel his son to associate with thieves and vagabonds. Now, I know something of the subject which I am
  1500
  speaking about. I am Chairman of the Committee of Management of the largest industrial school in the Kingdom; and I am constantly being importuned by the excellent superintendent of that school, and rightly importuned, to use my position as a legislator to do all I can to call public attention to the grave scandal of parents being able to claim their children at that early age, and to do everything in my power to obtain an alteration of the law as soon as possible. It is positively heart-breaking to that superintendent to have to bring up before the Committee of Management, to be given up—as he very often has—a promising, bright boy of 16, who is extremely anxious to enter upon a new life and break with his past—a boy who for years has been well taught and kindly cared for, who is responsive to kindness, and who is anxious to avail himself of one of the numerous situations open to him in which he might earn an honest livelihood either in this country or the colonies. But the boy has been claimed by a vicious parent, and, according to the law as it at present stands, that is recognised as a good and valid claim. He is claimed by, and given up, to a parent who, I maintain, in spite of what I understand to be the opinion of some noble and learned Lords to the contrary, has forfeited every shred of right that he may once have had to the respect and obedience of that child. The boy or, worse still, a girl it may be, is entrusted to the charge of such a parent, whose only object in getting back his child is that he may take its earnings to enable him to lead a dissolute, idle, and drunken life. I venture to say that any child must, to pass scatheless and uncontaminated through such a terrible ordeal as that, have very unusual strength of character, and a moral courage which is seldom found at so early an age. My Lords, this is no new thing. We find it is done, not in defiance of law, but under the authority and in the name of the law. The evil has been denounced over and over again, and the law has been denounced by the Commission on which the noble Lord opposite sat. That Commission denounced the evil in the strongest possible terms, and proposed to remedy it by an alteration in the law which these Bills will carry into effect. I am glad to find that this matter was

  1501
  taken up at a very early stage of its labours by the London County Council. On the 20th May last year that Council passed a resolution urging upon Her Majesty's Government the necessity of altering the law with regard to these schools without delay. My Lords, I am sorry to have felt obliged to trouble the House with these observations, but I think the extremely deliberate proceedings of Her Majesty's Government in this matter afford mo a sufficient excuse for having done so. On the backs of these Bills I notice the statement that they were ordered to be printed on the 28th March, 1890; and if they were then printed, there has been an absolutely inexcusable delay of six weeks. Why could not the Government have had these Bills drafted during the Recess, and have at once laid them before the House? If they had done so, the Bills might already have passed through the hands of the Legal Committee, which has had ample opportunity of dealing with them, because, on two occasions, the Committee has not sat, because it has had no work whatever to do. It is not as if they were in anyway a novel piece of legislation. As the noble Viscount has said, they were introduced last year, and one of them passed through the Legal Committee, while the other, which had 13 clauses, passed in Committee. I shall be told by the noble Viscount, I suppose, that there is plenty of time for these Bills to be passed into law. So there is if the Government is anxious about it, but I confess I have my doubts; for last year I observe that that the Reformatory Schools Bill was ordered to be printed on April 2nd: it did not reach the Legal Committee until July 16th, and then it was immediately withdrawn. On the back of these Bills, as I have said, there is a statement to the effect that they were ordered to be printed on the 28th March. Nobody knows better than the noble Viscount that it was a mere farce to order them to be printed by that date, inasmuch as the drafts of them were not then completed. They were not, in fact, drafted until the 21st of April, although the noble Viscount had promised that they should be introduced, of course, fully drafted, into this House before Easter. My Lords, I have thought it right, on behalf of the managers and officials of indus-
  1502
  trial schools, to offer these remarks, and to urge upon Her Majesty's Government the great necessity of carrying these Bills through Parliament as quickly as possible, and without the least unnecessary delay. These measures are not heroic or sensational; they are not demanded by large and angry meetings of people in Hyde Park; but I venture to think they will do a great deal more good than many Bills which combine all these conditions.
  *VISCOUNT CROSS: I will only say in answer to what has fallen from the noble Lord opposite, that it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to pass these Bills during the present Session, if it be possible to do so. He complains that they were not printed and actually introduced before the Easter Recess. They were drafted, and in order when I first introduced them, with the exception of one or two little difficulties which remained to be settled, I venture to assure my noble Friend that these Bills will pass this House long before the other House will be able to deal with them. Our difficulties are not in this, but in the other House. I can assure the noble Lord that it is the intention of the Government that these Bills should pass if we can get them through. With regard to what has fallen from the noble Lord Norton, I will Bay that no one can deplore more than I do the abuses in connection with these schools. Hundreds of children are sent to them who ought not to be sent there. I am afraid I cannot agree with him in doing away with truant schools; I think that they are of great advantage. Seven years' experience at the Home Office has led me to believe that it is a wise thing that these industrial and reformatory schools should be kept under that Department.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c.

REFORMATORY SCHOOLS BILL. (No.58.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  *VISCOUNT CROSS: My Lords, this Bill is in exactly the same form as it was last year, except that its provisions have

  1503
  been made somewhat more like those of the. Industrial Schools Bill in one or two of the clauses.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS BILL.—(No. 54.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Beading, read.
  *VISCOUNT CROSS: My Lords, it has been thought that the penal clauses which existed in these Acts should be brought before Parliament in a separate Bill. That was the general feeling last year, and it has now been done. I ask your Lordships to allow the Bill to be read a second time.
  LORD HERSCHELL: I will just say a few words upon this measure. I think the Bill will require some attention, because it strikes me that although it may be quite reasonable to empower a Court of Summary Jurisdiction in certain cases to impose a fine upon the parent, or to order the parent to pay to any person injured by his child a sum in compensation not exceeding £5, I think that some intimation ought to be given in the Bill that that provision is only to apply to parents or persons who have some control over the child. There is no definition here of what meaning the word "parent" is to have; and though that would be a very reasonable proviso where a parent has control over the child—and its neglected condition may properly be supposed to be attributable to him, and good grounds would exist, therefore, for imposing a penalty upon him—it would be unreasonable where the child was altogether out of the parent's control. 'Therefore, in some way the application of the word "parent" will have to be defined in order to show that the parent must have a control over the child. For example, this Bill will apply to girls under 16 years of age; and girls at that age are often entirely beyond their parent's control, or even married. We know that is not so uncommon a case that it ought to be overlooked. Then there is another point which will have to be regarded. I am not quite sure whether, as the Bill is drawn, it is intended to apply, and would apply, to cases where whipping may already be inflicted by a
  1504
  Court of Summary Jurisdiction under the Act of 1879. Under that Act, where an indictable offence has been committed, if the parent consents to its being dealt with at once without going to a jury, the Court may order the child to be whipped. I do not think this Bill covers those cases, because it only applies to offences punishable by the Court; and I doubt whether that is the same thing as indictable offences, which are dealt with under the former Act. Again, under that Act the limit of whipping is six strokes; but under this Act, if the child is over 12, the punishment may be increased to 12 strokes. Obviously it would never do to allow 12 strokes to be inflicted in cases of non-indictable offences, while six strokes is the limit of whipping for indictable offences.
  *VISCOUNT CROSS: I will take care that those two points are brought before the notice of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department. I do not know whether my noble Friend thinks this Bill would apply to the parents of an adopted child.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c.

PRESENTATION TO BENEFICES BILL (No. 58.)
  LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL BILL. (No. 12.)
  Read 3a (according to order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
SOUTH INDIAN RAILWAY PURCHASE BILL.—(No. 59.)
House in Committee (according to order); Bill reported without amendment; and to be read 3a To-morrow.

METROPOLITAN HOSPITALS, &c.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, the Motion which I have to propose this evening is really nothing more than a formal one. I mentioned to your Lordships last year the reasons which caused me to bring the matter forward, and since then the proposal has been agreed to by Her Majesty's Government. I should, however, like to mention? one point in connection with the subject. It has been mentioned in various quarters

1505
that I am actuated by a spirit of hostility to the great hospitals in London, and I only wish to contradict that by saying that I and those with whom I am acting approach this subject in no spirit of hostility at all. Knowing how great are the straits that many of these institutions are in, we wish to lay bare the facts, and so strengthen the position of those most worthy establishments, and we suggest that under the best advice some practical organisation should be formed, whose action and co-operation may render these great charitable institutions more useful than at present.
Moved,
"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire with regard to all hospitals and provident and other public dispensaries and charitable institutions within the Metropolitan area for the care and treatment of the sick poor which possess real property or invested personal property, in the nature of endowment, of a permanent or temporary nature; and to receive, if the Committee think fit, evidence tendered by the authorities of voluntary institutions for like purposes, or with their consent, in relation to such institutions: And further, to inquire and report what amount of accommodation for the sick is provided by rate, and as to the management thereof; and that the witnesses before the said Select Committee be examined on oath; agreed to."—(The Lord Sandhurst.)
Then the Lords following were named of the Committee:

L. Abp. Canterbury.

L. Clifford of Chudleigh.

E. Cadogan (L. Privy Seal).

L. Sandhurst.

E. Winchilsea and Nottingham.

L. Fermanagh (E. Erne).

E. Lauderdale.

L. Lamington.

E. Spencer.

L. Sudley (E. Arran).

E. Cathcart.

L. Monkswell.

E. Kimberley.

L. Thring.

L. Zouche of Haryngworth.

The Committee to meet on Thursday next, at Three o'clock, and to appoint their own Chairman.

COMMISSIONERS FOR OATHS ACT (1889) AMENDMENT BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 63.)
House adjourned at a quarter past Five (O'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Ten o'clock.