Lords Sitting of 19 May 1892

PUBLIC AUTHORITIES PROTECTION BILL [H.L.]

  COMMITTEE.
  Clause 1.
  THE EARL OF DUDLEY: My Lords, it has already been pointed out to your Lordships by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, on the occasion of the Second Reading of the Bill now before this House, that this measure by no means aims at altering or reforming the existing law, but is simply put forward to consolidate and to simplify numerous provisions in previous Acts of Parliament. It seems to me that Sub-section (b) of Clause 1 of this Bill would considerably affect the law as to venue of action as it at present stands; for instance, in cases affecting the Inland Revenue Department and the Treasury considerable inconvenience might be caused to their staff of officers in London, by creating difficulty through having actions, which might be brought against those Departments in different parts of the country, tried, as heretofore, in the Queen's Bench. It was therefore for this reason suggested that Sub-section (b) should be left out of the Bill. On further consideration, however, it seems that this Amendment is perhaps of too sweeping a character, and as, after communication with the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, I understand that he intends at the next stage of this Bill to introduce words, which will be so framed as to effect the object to which I have referred, without unnecessarily disturbing existing arrangements, I now beg leave to withdraw the Amendment which stands on the Notice Paper in my name.
  *THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think I must explain to the noble Earl that the nature of the Amendment which I have proposed is certainly not of the sweeping character of that which he has given notice of. It is quite true that I received from the Inland Revenue Department an intimation that they were rather desirous of standing out-
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  side the Bill altogether. To that I was certainly not prepared to agree; but I am not at all certain that the local venues which I had proposed to consolidate are not to some extent an anachronism. The existence of local venues generally has been very seriously invaded by the Judicature Acts and the Rules made under them. The plaintiff, until those Rules were made, had the right to put his action where he pleased. But under the operation of the Judicature Acts that is subject to the right of the Judge to alter the venue on good ground shown. The only thing I think that the Inland Revenue Department are desirous of obtaining would be obtained by making the clause stand subject to the Rules of Court. I believe that if on sufficient ground the Inland Revenue Department can make out a necessity for their being placed on any other footing, a Rule could be made to that effect. I should hesitate to alter the general law in the direction that the noble Earl seems to suggest; it would seem to be an unreasonable thing to alter the practice as it is, without any alteration of the law, leaving the plaintiff to do what he likes in that respect. The defendant never under our system had the right to select his own venue,—the plaintiff always had; and the power is still reserved to the Court to enable the Judge, for sufficient cause shown, to alter the venue, either upon the ground that prejudice exists in the neighbourhood where the venue was to be, or on one of those grounds that are familiar to lawyers, such as that the witnesses would have to come from a certain locality and that great expense would be incurred in trying the matter elsewhere than in the neighbourhood in which the facts occurred and where the witnesses live. Lately the matter has been debated in a somewhat different spirit; but for some reason or other the framers of the Judicature thought it right to give the plaintiff a right to state no venue at all, but that in such cases the venue should be intended to be in the County of Middlesex. I confess I think it was unfortunate, and I hope that that may be altered. I think the venue ought to be expressly stated, and presumably ought to be where the case can be most speedily and cheaply tried. But

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  in regard to the matter we are now discussing, I think if it were placed under the Rules of Court, every protection that the Inland Revenue Department could require would be given, and that it would not be so inconsistent with the whole course of our legislation as it would be if the sub-section were left out. I understand that the noble Earl withdraws his Amendment.
  THE EARL OF DUDLEY: Yes.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have now to propose an Amendment which I brought forward in the Standing Committee where it received the countenance of my noble and learned Friend (Lord Herschell) which I commend to your Lordships: that where a person representing a Public Authority is in the exercise of his duty to the public subjected to an action, and is unjustly and improperly sued and recovers a verdict in consequence, he should be entitled, according to the old practice, to an indemnity against the costs which he is thus improperly put to.
  Moved, in Clause 1, page 1, after line 20, insert a new provision—
  "Wherever in such action a verdict and judgment shall be obtained by the defendant, he shall be entitled to costs to be taxed as between solicitor and client."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Bill reported with Amendments; and to be read 2a To-morrow.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (BLIND AND DEAF) BILL [H.L.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Viscount CRANBROOK): My Lords it is not necessary for me to make any statement with respect to this Bill, which for two years has been passed by your Lordships; no change is made in it of any importance, and therefore I merely move that it be read a second time.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Viscount Cranbrook.)
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday the 13th of June next.

  SUNDERLAND'S CHARITY BILL.
  Bill read 3a according to Order, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
COMPANIES (CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION) BILL [H.L.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD HERSCHELL: My Lords, your Lordships are no doubt aware that under the Companies Act, in order to the constitution of a Company, it is necessary that there should be a Memorandum of Association signed by seven persons, and that certain other requisites of the Act should be complied with. When once a Company has been registered, and so formed, it becomes a corporation, and the rights and liabilities of the members of that corporation are determined by Act of Parliament; and, in case the Company is unable to pay its debts, there are provisions for the winding up of the Company, and of the settlement of the rights of creditors and the members of the Company. In two cases which have occurred in your Lordships' House, learned Lords have pointed out the serious consequences which would follow if a Company, which appeared to have been regularly formed, and in respect of which a certificate of registration had been given by the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies, should afterwards be held not to have been validly formed: so that those who supposed that they were members of the Company were not really members of a Company, and those who believed that their rights would be regulated under the Companies Act found that this was not the case. My Lords there is a general provision in the Companies Act that the certificate of registration shall be conclusive evidence that the requisites of registration have been complied with. But it has been recently held that that does not cover the determination of the question whether, for example, the seven persons have in fact signed a memorandum; and, if seven persons have not signed the Memorandum, even although the Registrar should have given his certificate that the Company has been duly regis-

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  tered, no Company would exist, the provision of the Companies Act would not apply, and it would scarcely be possible to determine, at all events without much litigation, what would be the rights either of creditors or of members of the Company. That is a very serious matter, which has been called to the attention of the Incorporated Law Society, and also of several Chambers of Commerce; and it is at the instance of the Incorporated Law Society, supported by those Chambers of Commerce, that I bring this Bill to your Lordships' attention, the effect of which is to make the certificate of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies conclusive, when the certificate is given, that a Company has been formed. But, in order that there may be security that the requisites of the Act have been complied with, power is given to the Lord Chancellor, with the concurrence of the Board of Trade, to make rules as to what the Registrar is to be entitled to request in the way of information and otherwise, in order to satisfy him, before he gives his certificate, that these requisites have been complied with. When once he is satisfied, in accordance with those rules and gives the certificate, I think your Lordships will feel that the certificate ought to be conclusive, and if it is not made so, great inconveniences and a good deal of injustice are likely to result. That is the object of the Bill, and I hope your Lordships will see no difficulty in reading it a second time.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Herschell.)
  *THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I do not rise for the purpose of opposing this Bill; but I am bound to say that I think my noble and learned Friend has hardly exhibited to your Lordships the whole importance of the Bill that he proposes. The Bill certainly does not appear to me sufficiently to fortify the provisions which he invites your Lordships to adopt. The hypothesis is (I take one by way of illustration, out of several) that there must be seven persons signing the Memorandum of Association in order to form a company. It has been held in the Courts lately that where there
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  are only six persons, we will say, really signing the Memorandum of Association, no company has ever existed at all. Those six persons may or may not be liable in some form, but there was no company, and some of the evils that my noble and learned Friend alleges might arise. But in the Bill I only find power to make Rules to give security that sufficient evidence should be placed before the Registrar before he gives his certificate. I confess I think that is a very inadequate provision. It seems to me that there ought to be some provision, fortified by the Penal Law, for dealing with the fraud which, by that hypothesis, has been practised upon a public officer. I should make it a felony for persons to pretend to have associated in a body of seven, which the Act of Parliament requires at present, and to induce the public officer to give a certificate which was founded on that mis-statement. It is not a very unusual or extraordinary thing to fortify the provisions of an Act of Parliament by such a penal clause. As your Lordships are aware, certificates of births, marriages, and deaths are given by a person whose duty it is to register them, and, if any individual makes a false statement to induce such a certificate to be given, that person is guilty of felony; and in that way I suppose people have been deterred from making such false statements, except under such temptations as induce persons to run the risk of incurring the penalties of felony. Here there is no such provision. And I regard with some apprehension the fact that for all purposes a certificate given by this public officer should for all time make a company. There is no analogy between this case and the case of a Charter obtained from the Crown by false representation. In that case there is a familiar mode of cancelling the Charter by Scire Facias. I do not find in my noble and learned Friend's Bill any power to put an end to a company, when once created, even if created by fraud. And it seems to me that there are many provisions that ought to be inserted in this Bill, if we are to pass such a provision as the noble and learned Lord suggests, which is of a very drastic character—namely, that a certificate however

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  obtained, on whatever false and fraudulent representations, should for all purposes and all time make a company. I do not say that such difficulties may not be met. I do not propose to move your Lordships not to read the Bill a second time; but there are a great many contingencies which it seems to me it is necessary to provide for before I shall be content with this Bill. I only say that with regard to what may hereafter be said and done in the Standing Committee. At the present time I only intimate that, in my view, there is nothing like sufficient provision against the evils by introducing this mere provision that the Registrar shall be fortified by such evidence as the Lord Chancellor and the Board of Trade may think it right to provide. Having so far delivered my soul, I will only say further that I will in the Standing Committee, if the Bill gets there, and if the noble and learned Lord does not himself propose to do so, propose such Amendments as will, in my view, carry out the objects which I put before your Lordships.
  LORD HERSCHELL: My Lords, I shall have no objection to any provisions which will prevent the dangers that my noble and learned Friend points to. I would only say that I do not myself think those dangers are very serious. The Companies Act has been in existence a long time now, and I do not think that there is any evidence of a tendency on the part of people to deceive the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies into registering a company when no company has really been formed. That could have been done at any time almost during the period since the Companies Act was passed. I would also point out that certainly, to judge from the language used by a noble and learned Lord in delivering judgment in this House in a company case, he apparently was under the impression that the effect of the Companies Act was to do that which I propose to do now; because, after pointing out the effect that would follow if it were held that there were no company, dealing with this very point of the number of signatories to the Memorandum of Association, he called attention to the provision in the Act to which I have
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  referred, that the registration should be conclusive. It was not necessary in that case to determine the point, and it has been determined the other way in the Court of Appeal. But for a considerable time it has been thought to be the law on account of the dictum by a learned Judge in this House upon the subject. Therefore I do not myself think that the dangers are so great; but I see no sort of objection to making it a penal act—I should approve of it—punishable by law, if any person in these proceedings did anything by way of misstatement to mislead the Registrar.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Monday next.

REFORMATORY AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS ACTS.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  *LORD NORTON: I beg to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will re-introduce the legislation which they have prepared, and twice passed through Committees during the last three Sessions, for consolidating and amending the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Acts; and whether the Bills might not be introduced, as on the last occasions, in this House. The Bills I know are ready for re-introduction, and are not likely to meet with any opposition. They are extremely important Bills for the consolidation and amendment of the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Acts, which, by the Government's own acknowledgment, are at this moment in a state of great confusion and abuse. The noble Viscount, the Secretary of State for India, introduced these Bills the Session before last, and carried them through the House; and in introducing them he said that they were urgently wanted to meet the very great abuses connected particularly with industrial schools, where hundreds of children are at this moment collected who ought not to be there, and who are placed in a false position by being put in a quasi pauper or criminal institution without any reason for it. My Lords, the reason why they are so collected there is

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  that the schools have been used by philanthropic people, not for the purpose for which they were intended. In the year 1884 I was a member of the Royal Commission upon the subject of these schools, the Chairman of which was Lord Aberdare; and we went round the three Kingdoms for inspection. I recollect in a large town in Ireland we found in the industrial schools such an enormous number of children, who did not at all come under the description in the Industrial Schools Act, that we sent for the Chief Magistrate of the place and asked him how it was. His answer was that he really did not know that they were not within the description of the Act—he said he had never seen the Act—but, if they were not, they ought to be. That is how the Act has been used in Ireland. In Scotland the Act has been used so as to empty the pauper schools in all the large towns of Scotland into the industrial schools, and so to relieve the rates and throw the charge upon the Treasury. In England the abuse is as great, as we see by the Reports of the Inspectors, as to the indiscriminate use of these schools. At this moment there is one out of eight thousand of the whole population in England in industrial schools alone, to say nothing of reformatories and other similar schools; and in Scotland one in three thousand of the whole population is in industrial schools. There is no doubt that people send their children from mere motives of kindness and charity if they are in poor circumstances at home, or they think they will be better educated and cared for in these schools. My Lords, the matter of cost is the last consideration that I would urge upon your Lordships for reintroducing Bills to amend these abuses. The cost at this moment is about half a million a year to the country; but that I consider is of very slight consequence, compared with the disastrous results of so treating these institutions. It is really on a large scale taking away the sense of parental responsibility from the great mass of the population as to the care and education of their children — encouraging bad parents, discouraging good parents, and pauperising a very large portion of the people. The Bills that I want re-in-
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  troduced to meet these abuses would be effectual. One provision is to lay upon the parents the total cost of their children in these schools, empowering the Local Authority to remit that part of the cost which the parents are evidently unable to meet, and also to take upon themselves altogether the expense of collecting, and of any defalcation of payments. That, of course, would be a very considerable check upon abuse. I think your Lordships will say that it should never be a matter of saving to a parent to get his child into one of these institutions; but that a child should, at least, cost the parent as much there as he would at home. I have had parents asking me how they could qualify their children to get into these schools. The only answer is, by throwing them on the streets. The Bills proposed that there should be an entire separation between what are called School Board duties and police duties in this subject; that the truant schools and industrial schools should take what are called the non-attendance cases, and the School Board should have nothing to do with crime. There are three Bills in one of which there provision is for entirely separating what I call the police action from the educational action in these schools. The Bills provide that in the case of boys corporal punishment should be used more for the sort of crimes that boys fall into, and at all events the punishment should be separate altogether from the education given in these schools. At this moment the confusion is so great that in the last Report to the Department it is clearly stated that the distinction between reformatory schools and industrial schools is also breaking down; that the class of children in the two institutions is exactly the same; and that the two are used indiscriminately by the Magistrates—who either convict in order to send to reformatory schools, or do not convict in order to send to industrial schools, according to the preference in the case for one school over another in that neighbourhood. The Inspectors not only say that these institutions are crowded in the most mischievous way, but that the length of detention in these schools is too long, and they re-

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  commend that in all suitable cases the children sent even to industrial schools should be boarded out, and in such cases should be sent to elementary schools; and that, in cases where it is possible they should be sent home again as soon as they are fit to go, if there is a decent home—and in some cases there is a decent home—I do not mean to say that in many cases there is; but, wherever there is a decent home for them to go to, it is a very strong measure, and a very wrong measure on the part of Parliament to take children away from their parents and place them in institutions of this sort to be educated as reprobates at the public expense. If these Bills were carried, it would be made clear that really vicious children should come under the general Criminal Law and be treated in the same way as adults; children of the ordinary kind of juvenile offenders should be punished, and then educated in reformatory schools; while for mere vagrants and neglected children in the streets without any decent home, there are the industrial schools. I would urge Her Majesty's Government to re-introduce these Bills at once into this House. The noble Viscount the Secretary of State for India is not here; but he is perfectly acquainted with these Bills, and he has stated their urgency to the House. He carried them successfully through this House without any opposition. We all acknowledge that he has thoroughly discharged the legislation connected with his own Department in this House, and I would implore Her Majesty's Government to allow him, now he has time, to take charge of these Bills, or, by whatever other arrangement they think best, to get these Bills again before this House, I would say without any further delay whatever. They would certainly pass through this House without opposition, and I think they might be in time to pass through the lower House of Parliament.
  *LORD DE RAMSEY: My Lords, I am glad to hear the noble Lord who asked this question speaking in such confident terms about the probability of little or no opposition to these Bills. It is a matter of great regret that although your Lordships have twice
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  well discussed the principles of these measures, they have not yet passed into law. It is the intention of Her Majesty's Government at an early opportunity to introduce them again; but, as your Lordships have so well discussed and considered them, it is considered convenient that on this occasion they should be introduced in the other House of Parliament, the more especially as in the Bills about to be introduced a very substantial number of your Lordships' Amendments will appear.

REFORMATORY AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS—EMIGRATION.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  *LORD MONKSWELL: My Lords, in venturing to criticise the action taken by the Home Office with regard to the emigration of children from reformatory and industrial schools, I wish at once to state the exact nature of the objection. I do not suppose for a moment that the Home Secretary is not actuated by the very best intentions; I do not for a moment allege that he has acted illegally, in the strictest sense of the word—no doubt he has acted in accordance with the letter of the law; but what I allege is that the Home Secretary has exercised a statutory discretion in direct contradiction to the plain intention of Acts of Parliament: that he has allowed the view and opinion of the Home Office to prevail over the view and opinion which has been sanctioned by the Legislature in more than one Act of Parliament. There has been a long-standing and serious divergence of opinion between the Home Office and the Managers with regard to the ultimate disposal of children from reformatory and industrial schools, as to whether the wishes of the parents should prevail over the wishes of the children. The Home Office, in upholding the right of the parents to take back their children when the time of their detention has expired, has acted in a way that is the despair of Managers who are condemned to see hundreds of promising children relapse into crime by being exposed to temptations which the children themselves, if they possibly could, would have avoided. Now, this action of the

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  Home Office, as I have on several occasions explained to this House, has led to the most deplorable results. The statistics show conclusively that the surest method of destroying all the good that is done for these children at great expense and with great trouble in these schools, is to send them back to their old haunts and to their old associates; and it is hardly a matter of controversy among the Managers of these schools that the best result is obtained by emigration, which takes them entirely away from their old haunts and associations, and gives them an excellent opportunity of starting afresh in life under the best possible conditions. In spite of the accumulation of evidence of the disastrous consequences that have ensued from children being sent back to their parents, the Managers of these schools have never been able to shake the belief of the Home Office in the sacred right of parents to wreck the prospects of children whom they have abandoned to the care of charity or of the State. Up to the present year, I fully admit that the Home Office had the right to its own opinion, just as much as the Managers had the right to theirs; but, my Lords, the question is now put on an entirely different footing. Up to last year the Legislature had taken no part on either side in this contest—it had stood aside and, as it were, kept the ring for the combatants. But last year the situation was entirely changed; the Managers invoked the Legislature to their aid, and the Legislature passed two Acts of Parliament to say that if parents did not undertake the obligations of their position they should no longer have the rights of parents. The Legislature said, in these Acts of Parliament, that parents could not claim the rights of parents while they refused to exercise the duties of parents. Now these Acts, as it seems to me, ought to have done away in the minds of the officials at the Home Office with any idea that they were in any way compelled by the law of England to regard the wishes of the parents rather than the wishes of the children—that they ought to pay an extravagant and, I venture to think, a deplorable deference to the wishes of the parents in the ultimate disposal of these children. Now one of
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  these Acts of Parliament had express reference to reformatory and industrial schools. This Act is a very short one indeed; it was passed last year, and is as follows: It is called—
  "An Act to assist the Managers of Reformatory and Industrial Schools in advantageously launching into useful careers the children under their charge."
  Therefore, there is no doubt with what object this Act was passed. The Act says:—
  "If any youthful offender or child detained in or placed out on licence from a Certified Reformatory or Industrial School conducts himself well, the Managers of the school may, with his own consent apprentice him to, or dispose of him in, any trade, calling or service, or by emigration, notwithstanding that his period of detention has not expired, and such apprenticing or disposition shall be valid as if the Managers were his parents. Provided that where he is to be disposed of by emigration, and in any case unless he has been detained for twelve months, the consent of the Secretary of State shall also be required for the exercise of any power under this section."
  Your Lordships will see that this Act, though it gives the Home Office a veto as to emigration, still mentions emigration in connection with other modes of disposing of the children, and it puts the Managers in the position of the children's parents, not only as regards other methods of disposing of them, but also as regards emigration; and the Act, as it seems to me, is clearly meant to alter the law as to emigration and to give the Managers of the schools greatly increased powers of emigrating these children. And I may call your Lordships' attention to the fact that, as regards other methods of disposing of the children, it entirely revolutionises the law by doing away with the veto that existed in the Home Office. Now the Managers of industrial schools naturally thought that when that Act was passed, what they conceived to be the spirit of the Act would be given effect to by the Home Office; and they thought that as they themselves, the Managers, had been put in the position of parents, the Home Office would have been as chary for the future in interfering with the discretion of the Managers as it had been in the past in interfering with the discretion of parents. But, my Lords, the Home Office did not take that view, and they

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  determined as to emigration to make this Act a complete dead letter; and not only have they made it a dead letter with regard to emigration, but it would seem, from the terms of a Circular which I hold in my hand, which was issued last August after the passing of this Act, that the Home Office consider it their duty still further to rivet upon the children the chains which they had already empowered their parents to place upon them. This Circular of the 25th of August, 1891, after quoting the Act says, that Mr. Matthews has thought fit to require that in all cases of disposal by emigration the consent of the Secretary of State will depend, among other matters, upon the written consent of the parent being forwarded to him, unless it can be shown that such consent may, through parental neglect or misconduct, be dispensed with; that is to say, the Managers must prove affirmatively neglect and misconduct on the part of parents. The Managers think that they should not be obliged to do this; they consider that the mere fact that the parent has parted with the control of his child, by making over his child to these schools, is primâ facie proof that he has not exercised the functions of a parent as they ought to be exercised, and that the boot ought to be on the other leg—that the parent ought to be obliged to show affirmatively that he is a parent who is well capable of looking after the welfare of his child. My Lords, what I want to point out is this: that it is a very strange thing that the first Circular that is issued by the Home Office after this Act has been passed, with a view to giving Managers further control over the disposal of the children, is in much stronger terms than the previous Circular of 1885; for the previous Circular of 1885 did not say that in order that the wishes of the Managers should prevail, in all cases misconduct on the part of the parent must be proved; it merely said:
  "It is desirable that in all cases a careful inquiry should be made into the character of the parents and the condition of the home."
  Therefore I say it would seem as if the Home Office had read those Acts of Parliament so as further to fetter the discretion of the Managers and the children rather than to give the
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  Managers and the children greater discretion as to their ultimate disposal. My Lords, I now come to the recent acts of the Home Office under that Circular. There were nine cases in which the parents of children who wanted to emigrate from the two industrial schools, Feltham and Mayford, with which I am connected, refused their consent to such emigration. In eight cases out of the nine the veto of the parents was upheld; the ninth case was a case of illegitimacy. Therefore in every case of a legitimate child the veto of the parent was upheld, and I hope that those eight children who are legitimate may not have cause to regret to the last day of their lives that they had the misfortune to be born in wedlock. It is clear, as I venture to think, that the Home Office has disregarded the intention of the Legislature; but I think that the matter becomes even plainer on referring to the "Custody of Children Act" passed in the same year; for that Act declared in Section 3 that
  "Where a parent has allowed his child to be brought up by another person"
  (that is subsequently explained as including a school or institution)
  —"at that person's expense, or by the Guardians of a Poor Law Union, for such a length of time and under such circumstances as to satisfy the Court that the parent was unmindful of his parental duties; the Court shall not make an order for the delivery of the child to the parent, unless the parent has satisfied the Court that, having regard to the welfare of the child, he is a fit person to have the custody of the child."
  It seems to me that that Circular goes against the plain spirit of the Act of Parliament in compelling the Managers to prove affirmatively that the parent has misconducted himself when, under very similar circumstances, that Act says that it rests on the parent himself to show affirmatively that he is a person who ought to have the control of his child. Now I really think that it is time that this nightmare of parental control should be no longer allowed to paralyse philanthropic effort. My Lords, I hope the House will strengthen the hands of those who wish to induce the Home Office in fit cases to allow their children to emigrate. As to the action of the Home Office, perhaps I ought to say

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  further that I have only been able to get detailed accounts of these children in one case. I have had short notes in the other cases, which I have sent on to the Home Office; I have not kept a copy of them, and, therefore, I cannot quote them to your Lordships; but I may mention, with regard to one of the cases put down in these short notes, that the note made by our inquiry officer is that the child's home was wretched, and that the father was not in a condition to find him any employment. With regard to another of these boys, I have the whole report of our inspector in my hand. The boy's name is Foster, and I may mention to the House that the payment that his father ought to make for his schooling is very greatly in arrears; and with regard to the other cases, where the Home Office have sustained the objection of the parents, I have good reason to believe that in some cases the parents have made no payment at all, in other cases very small payment, and I believe I am right in asserting that only in one case was any substantial payment made by the parent. As to Foster our officer reports:—
  "I saw the father at his work, a carman in the employ of the Local Government Board at Sutton, Surrey; he has been there seven or eight years; a widower. The house was locked up—I was told he was seldom at home: He has two children depending on him, living with his mother-in-law, a very respectable person, who said there was not the least prospect for the lad at home only to get into trouble should he return."
  Yet this is a boy who is very anxious to emigrate to Canada and the Home Office said he was not to go. I hope I shall have the sympathy of your Lordships' House with me. I hope the Home Office, on further consideration, will act in accordance with the views of the Legislature; I hope that they will cause reasonable facilities to be given for the emigration of these children who want to go, and whom the Managers want to send, abroad; and I hope they will have regard to the wishes of those who take great interest in these children, who have most reason to know in what way the welfare of those children can be best advanced. My Lords, I beg to move that the
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  Papers relating to such refusal be laid upon the Table of this House.
  Moved, "That there be laid before this House papers relating to the action of the Home Secretary in refusing permission to certain children in industrial schools at Feltham and Mayford to emigrate to Canada."—(The Lord Monkswell.)
  *LORD DE RAMSEY: My Lords, I venture to second the hope expressed just now that your Lordships will endeavour to induce the Home Office to carry out the spirit of the Legislature. I hope that I shall have no difficulty in a very few words in showing your Lordships that the Home Office have continually done that during three successive Governments. The noble Lord who has brought this matter before you founds his case, so far as I understand it, on the right of School Managers as before the right of parents to emigrate the children, and that there is to be no veto; but that whether it is liked or not by the parents those children are to be emigrated. But that is the very point which your Lordships decided last year, and it was the very object of the power being given to the Secretary of State to use his discretion in cases of parents not agreeing to their children being emigrated, and that the Secretary of State might use his power to veto the verdict of the School Managers. How did this matter arise? It was when the Government of the Party of which the noble Lord is a member was in power, and when two Circulars were issued by the then Home Secretary. The first Circular was in consequence of the Secretary of State discovering that children were then emigrated without their parents' leave. A second Circular was then issued to say that, although the Secretary of State would not allow children to be emigrated without their parents' leave, that was not to affect the case of dissolute or bad parents. The third Circular, and the one which I think the noble Lord seems to complain of most, was issued last year, and was simply calling the attention of the reformatory and industrial schools to the Act, which, as a Bill, was brought in by Colonel Howard Vincent, and really was part of the Bill of the Government, calling the attention of

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  the reformatory and industrial schools to what the Legislature had done. I daresay the noble Lord was not pleased with that Act; but, if Parliament in its wisdom has already decided that a veto as regards these cases is to rest with the Secretary of State, surely it is rather early, a year after, to ask your Lordships to alter your mind. The noble Lord has hardly, I think, fully stated to this House the numbers in this one particular case to which he refers. I presume he has taken the two schools together, Feltham and Mayford.
  LORD MONKSWELL: That is so.
  *LORD DE RAMSEY: That makes the noble Lord's side of the question better. But, if your Lordships will take Feltham alone, we shall find that, out of 31 names that were forwarded to the Secretary of State for emigration, the Secretary of State only put his veto upon six. Now the procedure in this case is very simple, and I should think nothing could be fairer or better to the parent, to the children, and to the community at large. Upon the Secretary of State receiving the names of these children he sends them to the Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools, who again sends his officer to investigate into each case. In these six cases the parents objected to their children being emigrated; in four of those cases the parents were distinctly respectable and of good character; in the other two cases there was nothing whatever against them. Now, my Lords, I ask you are we, some of us parents, to allow the children of poor and respectable parents, with nothing in the world to be said against them, to be emigrated against their parents' wish? Surely there is some justice in the decision that Parliament arrived at last year to give the veto to the Secretary of State on School Managers who would commit such an injustice. I think that the more the noble Lord opposite looks into this matter, the more he will find that the Home Office is distinctly inclined to second him in his well-known good works. He has taken up the view in this case that the Secretary of State is opposed to him. In that I beg to assure him most can-
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  didly that he is entirely in the wrong. If he thinks that the powers imposed upon the Secretary of State have been abused, then I am afraid my explanation will not satisfy him; but he may rest confident that it is only in the cause of justice and of freedom to the parents and to the children that the Secretary of State will issue his veto against the emigration of children in these cases.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I cannot help thinking that the noble Lord has rather misunderstood what my noble Friend behind me wished to bring before the House. My noble Friend does not for a moment contend that the Home Secretary ought not to possess the veto, or that the Home Secretary ought not to exercise that veto whenever he is satisfied that it ought to be exercised; what he wished to point out to the House was that, according to the view which he takes of the Circular of the Home Office and their action, they appear to be of opinion that the onus must lie upon the Managers of reformatory schools to show that there is a reason why the consent of the parents should not be conclusive upon the matter. What my noble Friend urged is that it ought rather to lie upon the parents to show that they are respectable people, and that the consent ought to be refused. Surely there is a great deal of force in what my noble Friend said. These children were originally placed in reformatories because they were neglected by their parents; they have been taken care of at the expense of the State; and the question then arises whether they are to be restored to their parents or not. Surely the obvious course to be taken by the Home Secretary, who possesses the veto, is not to restore them to their parents if another career is proposed to them by the reformatory school, and against the wish of the children, unless it is clearly shown that the parents are proper persons to receive them. But I rather gather, even from what the noble Lord has said, that the Secretary of State seems to regard it as part of his duty, unless the consent of the parents has been obtained, to exercise his veto.
  *LORD DE RAMSEY: I am glad that the noble Earl gives me an opportunity to explain that; it is quite the contrary. The Secretary of State uses his veto in cases where the parents do object, but yet he may insist on their being emigrated. He does not issue his veto in cases where the parents object and he says those children must not be emigrated; but, in cases where it is proved to him by the double inquiry that the parents are dissolute, and are not fit to have the charge and care of children, the Home Secretary says that those children shall be emigrated in contradiction of their parents' desire.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: Then I am to understand that, in point of fact, the noble Lord agrees with my noble Friend behind me; he did not say so. If he agrees with my noble Friend that the proper course for the Home Secretary is only to exercise his veto where the parents are unable to show that they are respectable parents and fit to take care of their children, there is no dispute upon the matter. I apprehend that my noble Friend will be perfectly satisfied. But unfortunately, according to what I heard from my noble Friend behind me, that impression does not appear to have been produced upon the Managers of reformatory schools, and I think it is very unfortunate that it should be so. The last Circular issued by the Home Office is certainly very much more peremptory with regard to the consent of the parents than the former one; and, if I might venture to make a suggestion in a matter of this kind to the Home Office, it would be that they should issue another Circular, making it quite clear that the view which the noble Lord has explained to the House is the view of the Home Secretary; and I have no doubt that, when that is done, the Managers of reformatory schools will be thoroughly satisfied.
  *LORD MONKSWELL: I should like to say a word or two in reply to the noble Lord opposite, because he seemed to labour in some respects under a misapprehension. He says that I object to the Act of 1891. It
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  was at my suggestion that Colonel Howard Vincent brought that Bill into the House of Commons, and I passed it through this House, because I thought it would give the Managers a great deal more power to emigrate children than they possessed before. Your Lordships may judge of my astonishment when I was confronted by a Circular which tells me that for the future it will lie upon the Managers to prove that the parents are drunken and dissolute, and cannot look after their children; whereas, what we have always contended for is that we should be placed in the same position as the "Custody of Children Act" places other institutions; and that it should be for the parent himself to prove fairly and conclusively to the Home Office that he is a proper person to take charge of his children. My Lords, I should like to know how much these parents have paid.
  *LORD DE RAMSEY: I am quite prepared to show the noble Lord what those parents have paid. He was quite correct in saying that one of them has paid a considerable sum; but other parents have also paid considerable sums.
  *LORD MONKSWELL: My information is just the contrary.
  *LORD DE RAMSEY: I can give the noble Lord authentic information; I will show him any Papers that he likes to ask for.
  *LORD MONKSWELL: I do not press the Motion for Papers if I can get any Papers I want.
  *LORD DE RAMSEY: There is no objection to Papers being produced.
  *LORD MONKSWELL: I may mention that I sent the Clerk to the Reformatory and Industrial Schools of the London County Council to Delahay Street to ask for Papers, and he was told that he could not have them. My Lords, I move for the Papers.
  Motion agreed to.
  House adjourned at twenty minutes before Six o'clock.