of the offender, is the readiest means of placing him in a more wholesome atmosphere.

Even where the offender and his parents are respectable, it is sometimes necessary to mark the gravity of an offence by imposing a penalty more severe than probation of good conduct. Whipping in such a case is often the most efficient punishment. I have in mind more especially an act of indecency, or wilful mischief, committed by a boy. A boy under fourteen will retain a more decided impression of the wickedness of his conduct, in relation to an offence of that class, if he is well birched.

Fines are not generally applicable to juvenile offenders. If the parent or guardian can be charged with conducing to the commission of the offence, he will be fined; but that is a charge which it is exceedingly difficult to prove, and, in any case, the punishment does not directly affect the child.

Where a temporary removal from home surroundings is desirable, but it is not thought proper to relieve the parents from the duty of watching over their child, the offender may be committed to a place of detention provided under the Children Act. After undergoing what is equivalent to a term of imprisonment, without the stigma of a prison, the young offender will return a wiser child, and his parents will be more sensible of the necessity of looking carefully after him.

Imprisonment in one of His Majesty's prisons, and detention in a place directed by the Secretary of State, are punishments of such an exceptional character, that for my present purpose it is unnecessary to say anything about them.

They are intended to be made use of only in the case of felonies, or of very bad children.

There arise occasions where the question of committal to a certified school, whether industrial or reformatory, must be weighed with discretion as against some other form of treatment. If the offender is within a month or

two of attaining the age limit, the opportunity of committing him to a certified school should not be lost, unless the Court is satisfied that there will be no reason afterwards to regret that he had not been so disposed of. At such a crisis, an intimate knowledge of the offender's circumstances and antecedents, is absolutely necessary.

These are my provisional suggestions. They are not intended as general principles, and they are not put forward with any expectation that they will receive general assent; but they may be accepted as a basis for discussion. They indicate the line of procedure, which must be adopted, if we are to endeavour to make sure that juvenile offenders shall not be permitted to grow into hardened criminals, through the failure of our judicial tribunals to use rightly the powers with which they have been vested.

HENRY H. BROWN.

THE

II. IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.

HE Report of a Committee of the House of Commons,1 appointed "to inquire into the existing law relating to the Imprisonment of Debtors and to report whether any amendments are desirable," has been for some time before the public. The circumstances under which it was adopted are not calculated to increase the weight of its recommendations. At the final meeting of the Committee, twelve Members were present. They were divided six to six; but by a rule which will strike most readers as a strange one, the Chairman of a Committee can only vote when the other members are equally divided. Mr. Pickersgill, the Chairman, therefore, could neither vote for his own report nor against that of Mr. Rendall, and the latter's report was

Report from the Select Committee on Debtors (Imprisonment). London: Wyman & Sons. 1909.

consequently adopted by a majority of six to five. Had Mr. Rendall been elected Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Pickersgill's report would have been adopted by the same majority. But the six who voted for the Report write as confidently as if the Committee had been unanimous, and refer to the "manifest and overwhelming advantages of procedure under the Debtors Act," regardless of the fact that a full half of the members of the Committee failed to see what was thus overwhelmingly manifest. “Any one but a fool would see this, but half of this Committee are fools," may be regarded as a free translation of this passage.

It will be seen that the terms of the reference are equally applicable to all three parts of the United Kingdom; and three Irish M.P.'s and one Scotch M.P. were placed on the Committee. It was not, therefore, intended to exclude either Scotland or Ireland from the scope of the inquiry. Each of the three parts of the United Kingdom had moreover its own Debtors Act, though Mr. Rendall and his colleagues seem to have been acquainted with the English one only. This Act was passed in 1869. The Irish Debtors Act followed in 1872, and the Scotch Debtors Act in 1880. All three abolished imprisonment for debt, with certain exceptions. (The allegation that any of them abolished it altogether, and that all subsequent imprisonments have been for contempt of Court, finds no support in the terms of the Acts.) In the English and Irish Acts the exceptions are expressed in the same terms, but are not in reality quite to the same effect. Both Acts except imprisonment under the summary jurisdiction of the justices of the peace, but the English justices had a more extensive jurisdiction than their Irish compeers, and this difference still continues to exist. It is for this reason that there is no imprisonment for nonpayment of rates in Ireland, while hundreds if not thousands. of Englishmen are imprisoned for this reason every year. The Scotch Debtors Act abolishes imprisonment for debt,

with two exceptions, viz., I. "Taxes, fines, or penalties due to Her Majesty, and rates and assessments lawfully imposed or to be imposed," and 2. "Sums decerned" (i. e., decreed) "for aliment." It was the duty of the Committee to examine the working of these three statutes, and report on their relative advantages or disadvantages. And even if the Irish statute were identical in all respects with the English, as the latter has led to a great difference of practice in different County Courts, the usual practice in the Irish County Courts could hardly fail to throw some light on the subject. There is moreover another difference between the two countries which is of some importance. The English and Irish Debtors Acts were both introduced in connection with a Bankruptcy Act, but the English Bankruptcy Act of 1869 was superseded by that of 1883, which introduced changes in the Debtors Act as a consequence, while the Irish Bankruptcy Act of 1872 is still in force, and there are, for example, no administration orders in Ireland. I may add that in Ireland there is an appeal from the County. Court to the Assizes, with the result that the County Court judge is not unfrequently reversed. How, then, are Ireland and Scotland dealt with in the Report before us? There is not a single word about Ireland. More than this, the English County Court judges and registrars are referred to as if they were the only judges and registrars concerned in the matter. No Irish statistics are cited. One Irish witness indeed was examined, but he had no special knowledge of the subject, and threw little light on it. The Report makes no allusion to his evidence, and as his name. was Duncan M'Gregor, it seems probable that the Rendallites mistook him for a Scotch witness. As to Scotland, they say: "The Committee has examined foreign and Scotch witnesses with a view to comparing their methods for the recovery of civil debts with the English procedure under this Act." The Committee took a very strange view of the

scope of their inquiries if they thought themselves at liberty to ignore Ireland altogether, and to treat Scotland as a foreign country. There would have been no difficulty in obtaining the opinions of the Irish County Court judges on the working of the Act if they had desired it, and though I do not think full Irish statistics are available, those that are published indicate a startling difference in the working of the Debtors Acts in the two countries, the cause of which would have been worth inquiring into. The opinions of three Irish County Court judges will be found in Mr. Collinson's pamphlet on the subject published by the Humanitarian League, which some members of the Committee had probably seen. I quote the following from Judge Orr, who would no doubt have expressed the same sentiments before the Committee if his opinion had been asked: "Strict investigation has convinced me that in almost all the cases that come before me a committal order would simply mean consigning the bread-winner of the family to gaol and the wife and children to the workhouse, and my belief is that in a large number of cases-perhaps the majority-the application is either made to put pressure on the debtor's friends to come forward and pay the debt, or to force people in respectable positions, such as mercantile clerks, school teachers, and the like, to resort to any means to avoid exposure, thus driving them into the clutches of money-lenders. The majority of debtors do not pay simply because they cannot, and if imprisonment for debt were abolished it might lead to a restriction of credit which would be an advantage." Passing from the opinions of the Irish judges to the Irish statistics, I have not been able to find any which give full details, but the reports of the Irish General Prisons Board contain for each year the number of persons imprisoned as "Debtors and Prisoners under Civil process"-a head much wider than imprisonments under the judgment-summons