THE CHILDREN'S BILL. T HE Cruelty to Children Prevention Bill is
very strongly backed. Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. John Morley, and Sir Henry James represent the three chief political parties, and Mr. Samuel Smith may fairly stand for the best and most rational form of philanthropy. When we read the clauses and the explanatory memor- andum prefixed to them, we are only surprised that such a measure should still be wanted, that such simple pro- visions as those contained in it should not long ago have been added to the Statute-Book, that in 1889 it should be necessary to make provision for the punishment of any
person who wilfully treats, neglects, or exposes a child in a manner likely to cause it unnecessary suffering, or to be injurious to its health. What have legislators been about all this time, that the elementary protection that a well-ordered State owes to all its citizens should be denied to the class which is most powerless to claim that protection for itself ? The omission may be traced to two motives of very different degrees of respectability. The first is, unwillingness to interfere with the lawful and necessary authority of parents. As regards the welfare of their children, they are presumably the persons best acquainted with the child's wants, and most inter- ested in supplying them. To interfere between parent and child is ordinarily for the advantage of neither. If the intervention is ineffectual, it probably does but make matters worse. Yet, in order to be effectual, it must often go the length of removing the child from the parent's custody, and encounter the risks that inevitably attend the destruction or suspension of a natural relationship. The second motive is far less creditable. It is the dislike to prevent the making of money by the persons who have the custody of children. Morally, no doubt, it is the duty of a child to minister to the necessities of a parent. But in England we have treated this duty as owing to every one who stands in the parent's place, no matter by what title he holds his authority, and we have given a most liberal interpretation to "necessities,"—especially in the matter of liquor.
In some respects, strange to say, the law has hitherto dealt more hardly with the parent than with strangers. Criminal neglect of children is even now a punishable offence, but it is so only when the neglect is committed by a father or mother. Yet among the poor a child is by no means always in the custody of its parents. They have often parted with their rights for a consideration, and the child is really the property of a showman or a tramp. This is when the child is of a marketable age and has some marketable qualities. When it is too young to be put to profitable use in this way, the devolution of guardianship takes another form. The child is put out to nurse. The object of Clause I is to make "any person" a competent offender against the Act, instead of, as now, only the parent, and to include in the prohibition many forms of cruelty which are not assaults and are not starvation. For example, a child may be shut out of its home at night, or locked up and left alone, in order to save the cost of having it properly looked after. Either of these acts is " likely to cause a child unnecessary suffering ;" and if this Bill becomes law, they will both be punishable, by whomsoever they are committed. The case of children whose lives are insured is covered by a proviso that where the person con- victed of cruelty or neglect is interested in any sum of money payable on the death of the child, a fine of £200 may be imposed. In this way some cases which really come very near to murder will be dealt with indirectly. At present, neglect may be proved against the person having the custody of a child without the law having power to inflict a penalty great enough to outweigh the gain of the insurance money. A fine which will swallow up the insurance money will just meet this defect. A further amendment of the law is to be found in the prohibition of street-begging and of street performances at night. At present, in the former case the child is regarded as the offender ; by the Bill it is the person who causes or procures a child to beg or to receive alms, "either actually or under the pretence of singing, playing, or performing, offering anything for sale, or other pretence," that will be liable to punishment. As regards performing children, their employment in the streets is absolutely forbidden under the age of ten, and restricted t) the day-time above that age.
No part of the Bill better deserves support than the fourth clause. The Criminal Law Amendment Act has armed the law with large powers of search in the interest of morality; • it is now proposed to arm it with similar powers in the interest of children's lives and limbs. If there is reasonable cause to suspect that cruelty or neglect is being committed, any Magistrate may issue a warrant authorising the person named therein to s)arch for the supposed victim, and to take it to a place of safety until it can be brought before a Court of summary jurisdiction, and proceedings be taken against the person accused of ill-treating it. The person authorised to make the search "may enter (if need be by force) any house, and may remove the child therefrom." The warrant is always to be addressed to and executed by an officer of police, who is ordinarily to be accompanied by the person who has made the application, and, if need be, by a legally qualified medical practitioner. These provisions seem to guard against any reasonable possibility of abuse, and if on very rare occasions a parent or guardian is unjustly suspected and subjected to some consequent inconvenience, the annoyance will be small in comparison with the suffering often inflicted on children in deference to the fancied sanctity of a locked door.
We are not nearly so confident with regard to the third clause. Where a person having the custody of a child has been convicted of ill-treating or neglecting it., or has been committed for trial for such an offence, or has been bound. over to keep the peace towards such child, any person may apply to a Court of summary jurisdiction for an order committing the child, "for any period, to the charge of its next friend, or any other fit person named by the Court," and the person to whom a child is so committed shall retain the control of it, "notwithstanding that it is claimed by the parent." We do not in the least deny the necessity in certain cases of taking a child away from its parents. Even Cardinal Manning, who is an ardent advocate of parental control, admits, in the current number of the Fortnightly Review, "that criminal and cruel parents forfeit their rights by violating their
duty The intervention of the State in loco parentis charges the State with the duty of doing what the parents were bound to do." What we demur to is the seemingly unlimited extent to which, under this section of the Bill, the State is allowed to delegate its responsibility. "Its next friend, or any other fit person named by the Court," is a very wide definition ; and for anything we see to the contrary, the State may know next to nothing of the persons to whom children are entrusted, beyond the fact that at a given date they were willing to take charge of them. According to the memorandum, "the clause will in many cases provide an alternative course to the commit- ment to an industrial school, and thus reduce the cost to the public of maintaining those schools." This does not strike us as at all an adequate reason for evading a responsibility which has been voluntarily incurred. If the public think it right—and so far we are quite of the same opinion—to assume the guardianship of certain children in lieu of their parents, it ought not too narrowly to count the cost of doing its duty by them.
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