THIRD READING. (Hansard, 12 February 1891)

§ LORD NORTON
My Lords, I have given notice of an Amendment, which I read the other day to your Lordships, to Clause 4 as proposed, and I did so with great regret that I should have to delay a Bill for which I am sure the country will be greatly indebted to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and in the purport of which I fully concur. I must say that I still think the Bill as now drawn will be a dead letter, because the parents who are intended to be dealt with are of a class who will never sue for a writ of habeas corpusto get the custody of their children. The fees alone in the High Court would be a bar to their so applying. The Bill also does not touch the class of cases chiefly in view, namely, those of vicious parents, throwing away all the good training of a child in an Industrial School when the child's term of detention has expired. My Amendment is upon Clause 4. That clause says that when the Court has rejected the application of a parent on the ground that he is wholly unfit to take care of his child, if the Court is of opinion that the child is being brought up by its foster parent or by the Institution taking charge of it in a religion different from that of the reprobate parent, it shall be the duty of the Court to secure that the child shall be removed from that better training, and shall 430 be taught in the religion which has led to its abandonment and to the parent's unfitness. This may be a necessary reservation of the parental right in a Bill in which all other parental rights are very properly thrown over; but what I want to point out is that if there are no means of teaching the child in the reprobate parent's religion, of course the provision fails. No Act of Parliament can compel the performance of an impossibility. If there are means, there are no funds provided in the Bill to replace the funds theretofore supplied by those taking care of the child.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I am sorry to say I cannot accept the noble Lord's Amendment, for various reasons. In the first place, I think I can show him that inasmuch as the provision which he has just read runs through the whole clause, and is a necessary power in it, what he proposes would be an unjust taxation of some of Her Majesty's subjects, and one which this House has no power to make. The only effect would be that, having given an expression of opinion upon the matter, the proviso would have to be struck out of the Bill as one of the definitive measures. I observe that the noble Lord, in giving his opinion of what the clause provides, says that it shall be the duty of the Court to provide for the education of the child in the religion in which the parent would have the right to have it brought up. That is not the clause. The noble Lord is mistaken in his view of it. The clause says in terms that— The Court shall have power to make such order as it may think fit to secure that the child shall be brought up in the religion of its parent whose legal right it is to secure that the child shall be so brought up. Therefore, the noble Lord will see that instead of its being any statutory obligation or duty on the part of the Court, the Court is simply empowered, if it shall think fit, to make such order as 431 the circumstances of the case may require. Personally, I should not be averse to some such provision as I think the noble Lord has in his mind, although the language of his Amendment, if he will forgive me for saying so, is some what vague. I think that what the noble Lord means is that where the parent of a child is, in the opinion of the Court, unfit to be entrusted with its care, and the child is being brought up in a religion different from that of the parent, if the parent has no means to provide for the child being brought up in that religion, there is apparently presented to the Court the difficulty of either allowing it to be brought up in a religion contrary to the wish of the parent or of delivering it up to the parent. I see the point at which the noble Lord aims, but I do not think the difficulty arises. He has, I think, mistaken the effect of the clause. Here, we will say, is a Protestant parent applying to the Court and desirous that his child shall be brought up as a Protestant; the child is being up brought as a Roman Catholic, and yet the Court would have only power to continue it in the custody of a person who certainly would not provide for its Protestant instruction. That is the difficulty in the noble Lord's mind. Well, I do not see the apparent difficulty, but he omits to consider that the whole matter is referred to the discretion of the Court, and I should imagine the Court will exercise its discretion in the best way possible for the interests of the child. It is not for me to say what the Courts might think proper to do; but possibly they might think it better that the child should be brought up in the Roman Catholic religion, although the child of a Protestant, or vice versâ, and taught its moral and religious duties, rather than that it should be taught nothing of the kind at all. It is very likely the Court would come to that conclusion. I will not say what conclusion I should come to myself, though I have a strong opinion on the matter. I doubt very much whether any Court would consent to take the noble Lord's view as to the provision that should be made for children who would have no religious teaching. I am afraid he would encounter a very strong body of opposition, if he were to try to establish a kind of sectarianism in these cases at the expense of the State. But 432 I understand that the noble Lord admits the Bill is a useful and desirable one, and let me also call his attention to the fact that this section was agreed to without a Division, by a very large Committee representing both Protestant and Roman Catholic Peers. The religious difficulty did not arise. This religious question is the one question which I believe would be found most likely to imperil this Bill. Do let me, therefore, urge upon the noble Lord not to press his Amendment to a Division. If it passes with the full authority of this House that this the greatest of difficulties, the religious question, has been surmounted, it will go to the other House with a weight which it certainly will not carry if it is only passed by a majority of your Lordships. I do, therefore, again urge the noble Lord, fully recognising that the Bill is of importance and is greatly needed, as he says it is, not to press his Amendment to a Division.

§ LORD NORTON
After what has fallen from the noble and learned Lord, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ THE EARL OF ABERDEEN
My Lords, before the Bill is put before the House for Third Reading, I should like in a very few words to call attention to the immense satisfaction with which the passing of this Bill will certainly be regarded, especially by the vast number of people who have long been engaged in that most difficult and most important philanthropic work—the training of neglected children. Even speaking within the range of personal observation and experience, one can testify to the fact that the difficulties of that work which are intended to be dealt with and overcome by this Bill, are of constant occurrence. The noble and learned Lord has alluded to the future of this Bill in other regions beyond. I am sure that the fact of its having been introduced by himself, and having received the approval of so many noble Lords in this House, ought to afford a very favourable prospect as regards its future. At any rate, it should surely remain free from the criticism that this is a piece of sentimental legislation. I should rather be inclined to think that some of the 433 criticism indulged in in other quarters has been of a sentimental kind; I refer to the almost superstitious dread which seems to actuate the minds of some persons of any interference with the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of parents. There is certainly one thing which this Bill will bring before a certain class of parents in a very forcible manner, and that is the responsibilities which they should recognise as attaching to them, and more especially in the matter of paying for the maintenance of their children, who have been brought up in institutions and by charitable people. My object in rising is to express my grateful appreciation of the action of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack in introducing this Bill, and the immense satisfaction with which it is regarded by all classes.