[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR." _1
Sfx,—With all respect to Lord Hugh Cecil, I am not ready to admit that Mr. Holland-Hibbert and I both mistake the question in discussion. I am not in the least prepared to accept the trend of his arguments to prove that I am a rabid
Socialist inspired by the doctrine : "The State giveth, and the State taketh away—blessed be the name of the State." Lord Hugh Cecil's irrelevant analogy from matters of religious faith and its converse has, I submit, nothing to do with the question under discussion ; I am concerned with an Act of Parliament. At any rate, there is a line of demarcation between mind and matter. Lord Lindley says I have not realized the importance of the word "wilfully." On Decem- ber 10th, 1898, in the Court for Crown Cases Reserved, consisting of Lord Chief Justice Russell of Killowen and five judges, in the case of Regina v. Senior, reported on page 8 of the "Justice of the Peace" for 1899 (and decided without a dissentient), Lord Russell defined " wilfully " as "done deliberately, intentionally, not accidentally or by mistake or inadvertence, Bo that the mind was going with the act." In the exercise of discretion—if words have any meaning— the mind goes with the act. Therefore, commission or omission, the result of the exercise of discretion is—be the result what it may—wilful. However loving and solicitous the parent, if the result of the exercise of discretion is neglect to provide necessary medical aid, that neglect is wilful ; and that is the point at which the Statute comes in. Reduce Lord Hugh's argument to its logical conclusion, and a parent may foolishly and perversely, in exercising his discretion, decide that a child with a fractured arm shall have no surgical aid. (The Society has had in fact such a case.) Here you get at the principle involved in Lord Hugh's argument. I venture to say such a proposition would shock the public conscience. The Legislature made the question "wilful neglect or no wilful neglect" one of fact for the decision of a Court of Justice. Lord Lindley and others are entirely mistaken in supposing that the Society decides this question. What the Society does is to place the facts impartially before the legal tribunal for decision, and thereby to tarry out the duty laid upon it by its Royal Charter of (1) Preventing the public and private wrongs of children and the corruption of their morals; and (2) Taking action for the enforcement of laws for their protection. And by virtue of this Charter I say the Society is the responsible body for taking action in such cases.—I am, Sir, &c., P. P. WHITBREAD, Vice-Chairman. N.S.P.C.C., 40 Leicester Square, London, W.C.
[We cannot continue this correspondence.—En. Spectator.]
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