ADOPTION, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—May I ask you, of your courtesy, to correct two false impressions which have resulted from the publication of Miss Rosamond Skrine's letter in your issue of October 18th ?
Your reference to the letter as by " Mrs. Skrine " has caused some readers to attribute it to my mother, Mrs. J. H. Skrine, who contributed an article on a kindred subject to your columns on August 11th, 1917. various other friends and fellow-workers, however, suppose the letter to have been written by myself, as I am known to have been engaged for many years in practical personal work among unmarried mothers and -their children. Some inevitable confusion between us, and some inconvenience to my own work, have already resulted from the fact that the name of one of my relatives appears on the papers of the National Adoption Society.
May I therefore make clear that, as a result of practical experience, I disagree entirely. with the aims of that Society, as well as with the views expressed in the letter ? In these matters surely only those who, like Miss Cox, have given their lives to work for these lonely young mothers can realize how complex the matter is. The right of the child to its own mother's love and care; the right of the mother to keep her• own child; her responsibility for it; the up-building of her own character; the demands that justice should make on the babe's father; that incalculable element known as heredity—all these problems, and others besides, confront us each time that an unmarried mother comes with her baby in her arms to ask our help. These knots cannot be cut by any such sweeping and seemingly simple method as " adoption, national and international," especially in a country where no adoption agreement, however stringently drawn up, is legally binding on any of the parties concerned.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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