Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act 1889; and this latter Act by sect. I made the neglect of a child in a manner likely to cause the child unnecessary suffering or injury to its health a punishable misdemeanour. The 1889 Act was repealed and the section as to neglect re-enacted by the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act 1894. "Neglect" in this Act was held to include the non-providing of medical aid (Reg. v. Senior [1899], I Q. B. 283). The 1894 Act was in its turn repealed, and the section as to neglect re-enacted with variations by the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act 1904, which by sect. 1 (1) provided:

"If any person over the age of 16 years who has the custody, charge, or care of any child under the age of 16 years, wilfully assaults, ill-treats, neglects, abandons, or exposes such child, or causes or procures such child to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, abandoned, or exposed in any manner likely to cause such child unnecessary suffering, or injury to its health (including injury to or loss of sight or hearing, or limb, or organ of the body, and any mental derangement), that person shall be guilty of a misdemeanour; and

"(a) On conviction on indictment, shall be liable, at the discre

tion of the Court, to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or alternatively, or in default of payment of such fine, or in addition thereto, to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding two years; and

"(b) On summary conviction, shall be liable, at the discretion of the Court, to a fine not exceeding twenty-five pounds, or alternatively, or in default of payment of such fine, or in addition thereto, to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding six months."

In 1908 the Children Act was passed, which partly repealed and re-enacted the 1904 Act. Section 12 (1) of the Children Act 1908 is as follows:

"If any person over the age of sixteen years, who has the custody, charge, or care of any child or young person, wilfully assaults, ill-treats, neglects, abandons, or exposes such child or

young person, or causes or procures such child or young person to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, abandoned, or exposed, in a manner likely to cause such child or young person unnecessary suffering or injury to health (including injury to or loss of sight, or hearing, or limb, or organ of the body, and any mental derangement), that person shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and shall be liable

"(a) On conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or alternatively, or in default of payment of such fine, or in addition thereto, to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding two years; and

"(b) On summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding twenty-five pounds, or alternatively, or in default of payment of such fine, or in addition thereto to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding six months; and for the purposes of this section a parent or other person legally liable to maintain a child or young person shall be deemed to have neglected him in a manner likely to cause injury to his health if he fails to provide adequate food, clothing, medical aid, or lodging for the child or young person, or if, being unable otherwise to provide such food, clothing, medical aid, or lodging, he fails to take steps to procure the same to be provided under the Acts relating to the relief of the poor."

Thus the principle has been definitely established that privilege implies responsibility, and that the relationship of parent to child not only gives the parent rights but casts upon him responsibilities. It was the wholesale repudiation of these responsibilities, coupled with a claim to the rights, which first induced Parliament to act in 1868; and from time immemorial it has been the same. Wherever rights are claimed and responsibilities repudiated, either the rights are taken away, or exercise of the responsibilities enforced.

Mr. W. P. W. Phillimore, the author of the article in question, attempts to show that sect. 12 of the Children Act 1908 is repealed, and with this end in view gives an interesting survey of the history of compulsory education,

winding up with sect. 13 of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act 1907, which casts upon school authorities the duty of providing for the medical inspection of children in public elementary schools, and also the power to make such arrangements as might be sanctioned by the Board of Education for attending to their health and physical condition.

Mr. Phillimore then cites sect. 30 of the Local Education Authorities (Medical Treatment) Act 1909, which provided that "nothing in this Act shall be construed as imposing any obligation on a parent to submit his child to medical inspection or treatment under sect. 13 of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act 1907," and suggests that it repeals sect. 12 of the Children Act 1908.

He says 66 we can hardly doubt that the last clause of the Education Act 1909 was intended to maintain the parent's right to withhold his child from medical inspection and from medical (and surgical) treatment if so minded." If this interpretation of the section is correct, then the words at the end of it "under sect. 13 of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act 1907" have no force and are meaningless.

Is it not possible that a parent should not be bound to submit his children to official medical inspection and treatment, and at the same time be bound to provide the treatment himself? Where is the inconsistency of the two provisions? A later statute repeals an earlier, either expressly or by implication, the repeal by implication arising where the later statute contains a provision entirely antagonistic, and unable to stand with, the earlier statute. It was never suggested in the proceedings taken by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, referred to by Mr. Phillimore, that the parent was bound to submit his child to the school medical officer's inspection, but he did so nevertheless. It was certainly not suggested that he should submit the child to operation by

the school medical officer. In fact, nothing was done to over-ride the parent's right under sect. 3 of the local Education Authorities (Medical Treatment) Act 1909 to refuse to allow his child to have anything whatever to do with the school medical authorities.

What was insisted on was that the parent was a parent, that he himself was therefore bound to provide aid for his child in the form of surgical operation, which however he persistently refused to do.

The opinion of the school medical officer was laid before the Court in the form of medical evidence. The fact that he was school medical officer is not material. He gave his evidence as medical opinion merely. The medical evidence on behalf of the defendant referred to by Mr. Phillimore was not before the Court which convicted the father of neglect, but was obtained afterwards for the purposes of the application to the Divisional Court to quash the conviction by the justices. The question of neglect or no neglect is one of fact, and the justices, who heard the evidence of the medical man, and themselves examined the child in private, found as a fact that the child was being neglected by not being operated upon for cleft palate. That divergence between the medical views of the operation for cleft palate which Mr. Phillimore claims would fully justify a parent in refusing his consent, was not brought by the defendant to the notice of the Court which convicted him; and unless Mr. Phillimore shows that before the proceedings before the justices were taken, the parent had the child medically examined by a doctor who expressed the view that the operation would be undesirable, or the parent was otherwise aware of a divergence of medical opinion on the matter, it seems rather beside the point for Mr. Phillimore to say "there was just that divergence between the medical views of the operation for cleft palate, which would fully justify a parent in refusing his consent."

That there is any divergence of eminent surgical opinion. as to the beneficial results to be derived from the operation for cleft palate has not, it is maintained, been proved by Mr. Phillimore.

. Besides the legal question of the validity of the conviction, and the practical issue of the facts of the case, there is still a third view of the matter, viz.: the ethics of parental discretion.

It is claimed that a parent, however ignorant, has a discretion to accept or reject medical advice as to treatment of his child in other words, to neglect to provide medical aid for his child. Mr. Phillimore makes the claim when he asks, "Is a parent obliged to accept the dictum of the school medical officer, and to submit his child to any medical treatment or surgical operation that may be prescribed, or has he any discretion to decide how far, if at all, he shall comply with the official medical view?" and also when he says "though we can hardly doubt that the last clause of the Education Act 1909 was intended to maintain the parent's right to withhold his children from medical inspection and from medical (and surgical) treatment if so minded."

This right is supposed to belong to a parent as parent, to be inherent in a parent, which leads to the conclusion that a claim is made to an inherent right to do wrong.

It is supposed no sane person would claim discretion for a parent who, through vicious habits, neglected his child, either by not providing medical aid, or in any other way.

It is impossible that the majority of people should have expert medical knowledge. They have not the time to acquire it, and are necessarily dependent upon those who have given their life to its acquisition. A curious distinction is made by some people between a parent incapable of judgment through vice and one incapable of judgment through ignorance, in that for the latter discretion is claimed to accept or reject advice founded on special knowledge and