I would, on personal grounds, hesitate to address this Committee upon these important questions of Home Office administration within so short a time of my entry into this great office. At the same time I think that it would be unfair to Members of the Committee, and still more would it be unfair to the great company of zealous workers in the prison administration, if I did not, even at this early moment, give the Committee some idea of the work that is being done and the attitude with which I personally approach it.

I have a hereditary interest in prison administration. It does so happen that amongst my family archives are several letters recounting the history of the first Committee that was formed upon prison reform, of which my great great grandfather, now more than a century ago, was Chairman and of which the other members were Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, so well known in connection with the emancipation of the slaves, and my great great aunt, Elizabeth Fry. For many years past I have taken, not unnaturally, a great interest in the doings of my family predecessors and particularly in the career of that very remarkable woman, Elizabeth Fry. It seems to me that her work, great as it was in relieving the actual sufferings of prisoners, was chiefly valuable in concentrating public opinion upon a number of urgent questions of social reform. Hitherto there had been no interest in the many questions connected with the treatment of prisoners, and just as some years later Florence Nightingale concentrated the attention of the country upon scandals in the nursing service, so Elizabeth Fry, more than a century ago, concentrated the attention of the country upon the scandals in the prison service.

At that time the chief enemy of prison reform was not, I believe, the brutality or the cruelty of the people of the time so much as their ignorance. Nobody knew what was going on. The trouble there was inside the prisons, and the move for reform came from outside the prisons. Now I venture to suggest with great diffidence, coming new to these questions, that we still have to fight against the enemy of ignorance, and I believe today that the enemy is not so much inside the prisons, for I believe the most progressive reformers are connected with the actual administration of the prisons nowadays, but the ignorance of the general public outside, and on that account I welcome the opportunity that this Vote gives to the Committee for discussing these questions and doing what we can to dispel an ignorance that, in my view, is the chief enemy of further reforms.

Let me give the Committee one or two of my first impressions. I give them very diffidently, and I only give them as the result of consultations that I have already had with the men who are actually engaged upon these great problems of social life. The first impression that has occupied my mind is that the problem with which we are confronted to-day is the problem of the young prisoner; how are we going to prevent him from coming back again to prison once he has finished his sentence and been released?

Stop him from going there!

Yes, by all means, but suppose he does, the problem is how are we to prevent him from going there again? I imagine that there have been two methods attempted to do that. First of all there was the method of making prison life so unattractive, making the discipline so rigid and the conditions so inhuman, that he would be deterred by fear from running the risk of going back to prison. In theory that might sound an effective way of keeping young men out of prison, but in actual practice—so I gather from what study I have been able to make of the problem—it has not succeeded. Indeed, the more humane prison administration has become the lower has been the number of habitual criminals, that is to say, criminals who go back time after time. For some time at the Home Office we have been trying the experiment, not of increasing the deterrent character of the prison, but of appealing to the prisoner's better instincts, to make him leave the prison with a less evil disposition, and most important of all, to give him an interest in the things which really matter in the world.

The form that it has taken is this. In the old days a prisoner on entering prison had no privileges, or scarcely any at all. He started in the hardest possible conditions, and if he behaved well, so I am informed, he gradually obtained further privileges. My advisors have come to the conclusion that the wiser course to adopt is to start a man, directly he comes into prison, with a share of certain privileges from the start, and to appeal to his better instincts, and also to his own interests, by letting him know that if he behaves badly he will lose the privileges he has actually obtained when he first entered prison. It is an interesting psychological problem which has cropped up in this experiment. Is it better to appeal to a man's desire of gain or to his fear of loss? On the whole we think it is better to give a man privileges and appeal to his fear of losing them rather than starting him with nothing, living in the rather indefinite hope of getting something better later on if he behaves better.

I am able to announce to the Committee that, as far as we can judge, the experiment of giving prisoners privileges from the start has been successful where it has been tried. It has been so successful that we are now prepared to extend it to the three convict prisons, Chelmsford, Parkhurst and Dartmoor, and give the convicts an opportunity of earning wages, and by their wages to buy such relaxations as cigarettes and things of that kind. I believe it is better in the case of men who are sentenced to long terms to give them these privileges soon after they arrive at the prison, and meet any form of misconduct later on by a withdrawal of such privileges. I give the Committee that as an example of the attitude with which the Prison Commissioners are approaching the problems of prison administration.

Let me give another example. I take it from the experiment which is being made at the large prison at Wakefield. A very interesting experiment in prison administration is being made at Wakefield, so interesting that I think the Committee will bear with me if I read a short report I have received on the subject:

"When the large prison at Wakefield was re-opened after the War the opportunity was seized by the Prison Commissioners to make certain experiments which would obviously be conducted more easily in a place where a new start was being made. Instead of being merely a local prison for men of all categories in the West Riding, Wakefield was set apart as a form of Training Centre to which selected prisoners could be drafted from the North country and the Midlands, why by virtue of their antecedents and their length of sentence appeared to be likely to respond to a period of character training. Between 400 and 500 men, each of whom is serving a sentence of at least six months are trained at Wakefield under conditions of greater freedom and responsibility than would be practicable in any ordinary mixed prison. A minimum degree of supervision is exercised. The men are divided into small sections. In each section the Governor appoints a 'stroke'"—

a kind of rowing stroke—

"who has no authority over the men of his crew but is expected by his leadership and example to exercise a sound and wholesome influence. A system of paying wages according to the amount of work done each week has been introduced with the result that the output has been greatly increased. The men spend the wages, which they receive in coin of the Realm, in tobacco and other small luxuries.

"In order that the recruits to the English Prison Service might have a glimpse of how men can be handled in a system of co-operative discipline the Training School for Prison Officers has been established at Wakefield. Every man who has been selected for training as a prison officer spends nine weeks at the Training School at Wakefield.

"For some time it has been realised that a considerable number of men who have been convicted of offences are of a type that does not require the maximum security of high walls and prison bars. They can be trusted to work hard and live decently in conditions of comparative freedom.

"The Prison Commissioners were fortunately able to secure the lease of some 300 acres of scrub and woodland, about seven miles horn Wakefield. They have established a camp of wooden huts where 50 selected prisoners live and work. They have been busily engaged in felling the trees, grubbing up the roots and bringing the land under cultivation. The camp has been in existence for just over a year and no untoward incident has occurred. There is no doubt that these men are receiving better preparation for active life in the outside world by this hard and healthy life in the camp than can be given within the limits of a cellular prison."

That is a very interesting experiment which we shall all follow with the greatest sympathy. I commend to hon. Members on all sides of that Committee the interest of this experiment. Let them follow it, let them take an interest in the general question of prison administration, and let them go down and see on the spot the work that is actually being done.

I come now to another impression that I have already formed in the talks that I have had at the Home Office. It seems to me that in the years to come we must carry still further the classification of offenders. A great deal.was done for children and young persons under the 1933 Act. I believe that we shall have to consolidate our efforts much more than they are at present consolidated in dealing with the next class of offenders, the adolescents, and last of all, in dealing with the habitual criminals. My advisers tell me that very different problems arise in connection with all these three categories of offenders, and I certainly intend during the time I am at the Home Office to look into the question of a further classification and to see what still needs to be done. It may well be that we shall find in due course that further legislation is necessary.

Another point which has struck me, and which probably has struck still more hon. and right hon. Members, particularly on the Front Bench opposite, who have been in close touch with the actual administration of this question, is that one of our difficulties is the antiquated character of many of our prisons. They were built generations ago in the centres of our great cities, at a time when the outlook on prison questions was very different from what it is to-day; and I own that I have at once been struck, particularly by comparison with the example which I have just given to the House of what is being done at Wakefield—where there is scope, where there are 300 acres on which men can go out and work—with the problem of the central prisons, out-of-date buildings in the middle of our great cities. To-day I make that allusion only for the purpose of assuring hon. Members that I am fully alive to the difficulties which a problem of that kind presents.

Lastly, I have been greatly impressed by the fervour and energy of a large company of men and women who are working voluntarily in one way and another on behalf of prisoners, men and women. There is a great company of these voluntary workers. They, together with the Home Office experts, are a very sympathetic body of men and women, containing among their number some of the best-known experts on prison administration in the world. They are doing great work, work which is little known to the country generally, work which hon. Members ought fully to recognise, in generally raising the moral and physical standard of the prisoners and in giving them new interests. The more one thinks of this problem, the more one is convinced that it is new interests that these men and women chiefly want—get them interested in the things that matter, get their minds turned away from morbid contemplation of the past, get them interested in their work, and get them interested in their physical health.

I believe that this body of voluntary workers, aiding my expert advisers, stimulated I hope by hon. Members on all sides, will be able to carry still further the great work of social reform which was begun a hundred years ago, which has been going on ever since, but which is even now by no means complete. Let us, then, go on along the line that I am suggesting, and let us remember always that the greatest prison reform is the reform that keeps people out of prison altogether. Let us remember that even more than all these beneficent movements within the prison walls, what chiefly matters is the general raising of the standard of life, mental, physical, moral, outside the prison walls. The problem upon which I am engaged today, and which the Committee is discussing, is only one part of the great field of social reform, which includes within its scope education in the schools, housing conditions, the campaign for greater physical efficiency, and all the many other branches of social betterment that will at once occur to the mind of every hon. Member. I think I have said enough to show to the Committee the kind of attitude with which I intend to approach these problems. I ask hon. Members to give me their criticism when it is needed, but also to give me their cooperation in a work of great national and social importance, for I believe that common effort made by all of us, with the public outside interested, can carry a great step forward the good work that has already been done.

Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to tell us something about the women prisoners, to whom I do not think he made any reference?

At the end of the Debate.

I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by £100.

In moving this Amendment I think I would offend the etiquette of the House of Commons if I failed to welcome the right hon. Gentleman as Home Secretary. He has had an extensive peregrination through various Government Departments. I have looked up his record, and find that he has been in the Colonies and that he has been in the Air—

No, the Colonies is one Department in which I have not been.

I must have been wrong in my references. But he has been in India, he has been concerned with foreign affairs—if my memory serves me aright he was not very happy about them and something happened to him there—he has been in the Admiralty and now, at long last, he has reached home, and comes before us as Secretary of State for the Home Department. I must say right away that his speech this morning was exceptionally sympathetic. It becomes him to be sympathetic after what he has told us of his distant relations and what they did in the remote past. I am afraid that most of us if we looked up what our great-grandfathers did, might find that they were the very prisoners who benefited by the efforts of the right hon. Gentleman's forbears.

It behoves me on this occasion to make some reference to the excellent work which was done and is still being done by one who was formerly a Member of this House, Mr. Edward Cadogan. I think he ought to receive a tribute from this country, especially in relation to the book which he published recently giving us the history of prison administration. In that book he brings out one fact which has concerned some of us for a long time past. He shows clearly that a great deal of the crime in this country is consequent upon poverty, and I hope to show later on from the Prison Commissioner's Report, to what an extent that is the case. Touching on some of the observations made by the right hon. Gentleman this morning, I welcome the idea of the payment of wages in prison. It is an innovation which I feel sure must have beneficial results. In regard to the classification of prisoners, I would, however, ask him to bear in mind one or two things. I do not believe that the classification of prisoners according to their criminal records is enough. There ought to be another classification made according to their mental and physical standards. The report of the Prison Commission is full of evidence to show that that is even more important than a classification made in relation to the criminal practices of the prisoners.

I regret very much that in the rejoicings which attended the Coronation, something was not done in respect of the prisoners. Some of us had the privilege of being in the Abbey and were also guests of the Government at the Naval Review, but I felt a little sad, amid all those rejoicings, that the Government had not remitted sentences on certain prisoners as an indication that the nation was celebrating a joyful occasion. A very remarkable hook has been written recently by an ex-convict named McCartney under the title "Walls have Mouths." Anybody who is interested in prison reform ought to read that work. Unfortunately, he pays me an unnecessary tribute, and I am not sure that I am so delighted at that.

I come now to a point of substance in a Debate of this kind, namely, that the average adult population in our prisons is declining every year. It is declining gradually, in spite of the fact that the total population has been increasing. It should be a great comfort to the whole nation to know that statistics show that the number of murders for example in this country has remained stationary while the population has more than doubled. If that is an indication of our standard of civilisation, I think we ought to rejoice. But while the prison population is declining, I do not think it is correct to assume that the behaviour of our people has improved proportionately. What has happened has been this. Changes in the law have eliminated from our prisons certain persons who would have been there if the law had remained unaltered. Hon. Members will recall the Money Payments Act, which came into operation on 1st January, 1936, in relation to persons who cannot pay their debts or fines to which they have been subjected.

I think we shall see a still further reduction in the prison population as a result of such changes in the law. Some parts of our legislation dealing with matters of that kind are still out-of-date. But if we want a correct picture of what is happening as to the relation between the total and the prison population, I do not think it can be presented better than in the following form. In 1913, the last year before the Great War, out of every 100,000 of the population there were 555 in prison. In 1930 there were 143, a decline of one-fifth, and in 1935 the figure was 114, and I would not be surprised to find that for 1937 it will have fallen below 100.

Would the hon. Gentleman kindly repeat the first figure given by him?

I said that in 1913 out of every 100,000 of the population there were 555 in prison. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman or myself were in-chided in that 555.

Not yet.

The hon. Gentleman went on to say that there was a decline of one-fifth in 1930. I think he meant that there was a decline to one-fifth of that figure.

That is so. I was probably thinking in Welsh and speaking in English. There is one feature of the statistics about which some hon. Members may be suspicious when I mention it, but I do so merely as a matter of fact. The only figure which shows a substantial increase in this connection is that in rela- tion to drunkenness. If l had my way, the brewers of this country would be compelled to maintain their victims in prison, and then I suppose we would see a reduction in convictions for drunkenness. [An HON. MEMBER:"Or in the strength of the beer".]

There is another interesting feature of our criminal statistics. It is not generally known that while there is a reduction in the average adult prison population, in relation to both men and women—and it is to be remembered that women compose the majority of the population—only one-seventh of the prison population are females. But while there is also a welcome reduction in the criminal statistics relating to boys and girls in Borstal institutions, it has to be added that the decline in crime amongst youngsters is not as steady as it is among adults. A great deal is being done in this connection by the Prison Commission, and we ought to pay a tribute to their good work in fostering education in prisons. I can claim that I had just a little to do with that work myself. I visited Parkhurst. Holloway, Wormwood Scrubs and saw what was being done there, but I want to tell the right hon. Genleman this. I doubt very much whether, with all the sympathy and good work of the Prison Commissioners and their staff, it will ever be possible to do very much more to help the prisoners as long as those old prison buildings remain. When a shopkeeper finds that he cannot display his goods and carry on his business successfully, or when any local authority find that they cannot conduct the education of children properly, the first thing they do is to get a suitable building. The right hon. Gentleman would do well, therefore, to look into the problem of securing new prisons, especially in relation to Pentonville and Holloway. Take Strangeways Prison, Manchester. I almost feel that I am in gaol in Manchester when I am outside its walls. Why this hilarity about Manchester I fail to understand. Strangeways Prison is almost an abomination even from the outside.

I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman or the Under-Secretary, after a fairly long experience of Borstal, to tell us whether they are really satisfied with what is done for young people there. I have looked at the figures and find that the number of Borstal young men who come back into crime again is not very large, but I should like an assurance that everything possible is being done to prevent that. When I was a member of a Committee which inquired into the treatment of young offenders I went to Belgium to make investigations and report on what the Belgium Government were doing. I have never been able to understand why this country, which is in the forefront in matters of social reform—it has gone back in many respects since this Government came into power—should be behind in regard to our prison system. The representatives of the Prison Commission attend conferences of the International Penitentiary Congress and they have apparently seen the same places in Belgium that we visited where delinquent boys and girls are subject to examination by psychologists. They are studied very carefully and their ultimate destination and treatment are settled in those observation centres. I know that a good deal is done on that score at Wormwood Scrubs in regard to young men and young women, but I think the work ought to go much further.

Let me say how the prison system as I have studied it affects my mind. To sentence a man to prison is a very much more cruel thing than people generally suppose. He may for 10 or 15 years lose his liberty, lose contact with his family, lose all his eivil liberties and probably, in some way, our social insurance schemes are never available to him again. In spite of the fact that he has wiped out his offence in prison, he has not wiped it out in regard to some of our social services. His offence really follows him to the end of his day. I am not sure whether he is not deprived of some of our pension rights, because he has been a convicted prisoner. When we remember that he has lost all contact with society while in prison, I do not think that the community is entitled to be unduly cruel to him when he is inside prison walls. The sympathetic note struck to-day by the right hon. Gentleman might well therefor percolate a little further down into our prison system.

With regard to the prisons themselves, I have already said that a great number of them are out of date and of little use to-day. I welcome the experiment at Wakefield. Hon. Members know that I have no sympathy whatever with the Russian form of government, but I am told authoritatively that in that country, they are making some wonderful experiments in relation to prison life. I have seen it reported that Sir Alexander Paterson has been on tour visiting foreign prisons. The right hon. Gentleman would do well to let us have some comments on what he has seen there. Since I grew to manhood I have studied in my humble way some of these problems on the spot, and I am convinced that it is always possible for one country to learn something from another. I make bold to say that in respect of our social security schemes we have the best, but I am not so sure that in connection with our prisons that we are foremost in the world. I should like to know officially what is happening in other countries, and I hope that we shall have a report on what is being done over there.

Let me turn to this very excellent report of the Prison Commissioners. We have not the report for 1936 yet, and I fail to understand why we cannot get these reports a little earlier. I have been running an office for 30 years and I see nothing in this report that we could not get out before the end of May. In this report there is one pertinent remark which struck me. It states that four men and 10 women were released on medical grounds and nine of the women were cases of advanced pregnancy. I should be happy if we could be assured that no babies are now born in our prisons. When a baby is born in prison, what happens is that they give a fictitious address, say, No. 2, Sand Street, or something of that sort. It is accepted as undesirable to let the prison address appear in the books of the Registrar of Births. I should be glad, therefore, if we could be assured that no baby will be born inside a prison in the future.

In regard to the educational work which is done in prison, I understand music is now provided. I do not see why the Hallelujah Chorus and Diadem should not be sung in prison. Music has a very soothing influence on prisoners as on the rest of us, and I hope that the educational and musical work done in prisons will be extended. It is, however, true to say that nearly all the educational work done in our prisons depends very largely on the initiative and good will of the individual governor. There is no general standard throughout the whole of the prisons as to what should be or can be done in regard to education. You may get a very ardent and enthusiastic governor who will try his level best to spread education among the prisoners, and you may get another gentleman who has not the slightest interest in efforts of that kind, and who will do absolutely nothing. I trust, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman will look into that matter very soon.

Let me touch on one other point with which I wanted to deal. I mentioned a moment ago about crime being a consequence of poverty. I am not foolish enough to say that all crime is a consequence of poverty, for it is not. I know some men who are rich beyond dreams who commit the silliest crimes imaginable. Let me read this to the right hon. Gentleman. It is on page 61 of the Prison Commission's 1935 Report. Hon. Gentlemen behind me who represent depressed areas will be as interested as I am, and I wish the Minister of Labour would have a look at it. This is what the governor of Bedford Prison says:

"While the transfer of young prisoners to this collecting centre has been reduced there has been over 25 per cent. increase in local receptions, due largely to the transfer of youths from the distressed areas in the North and Scotland to work in this committal area. Many of the lads seem to come from good homes but when away from their influence and discipline land into trouble as a result of a reckless search for excitement in their spare time. Many of these lads are by no means criminal; on the contrary quite, frequently they bear the stamp of a good upbringing."

The governor very nearly blames the Ministry of Labour for their responsibility in transferring these lads without looking after their amenities and keeping them away from crime. I will leave that point with the right hon. Gentleman, and I trust that the Minister of Labour will be able to look at the problem from that angle.

I have now said enough to indicate what we on this side of the Committee think of the right hon. Gentleman and the work which lies before him. I need hardly remind him that an eminent statesman once said that more Governments had been shipwrecked on the Home Office than on any other Department. It metaphorically somehow or other hangs the wrong man or arrests the wrong woman. I trust that will not happen with the right hon. Gentleman. I was turning up a little volume this morning and I will quote, to conclude, the words of a greater man than anyone here—Shakespeare in "Measure for Measure." When we are dealing with these men and women behind prison bars, I am always reminded of his words—

"They say, best men are moulded out of faults,

And, for the most, become much more the better

For being a little bad."

My experience as a Member of this House leads me to the conclusion that its business would be greatly accelerated if hon. Members generally, and in particular hon. and learned Members, confined their attention to subjects on which they had some personal or practical knowledge. I cannot claim to have had the honour yet of accepting the hospitality of His Majesty's prisons under the friendly aegis of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Pollok (Sir J. Gilmour), under the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or under the new Home Secretary, whom we welcome here. It happens, however, that my work for 30 years past, both at the Bar and as a Recorder, has been closely connected with the administration of justice. It is for that reason that I venture to ask permission to detain the Committee for a few moments on what is a matter of vital importance. I wish to pay my personal tribute to the officers, both men and women, of the prison service. We rightly hear a great deal about the excellence of our police force, but only those of us who have seen the kindliness, the consideration and the care with which both men and women warders and the higher officials treat those unfortunates in their, care, know the difficulty of the work they are carrying on. They are, indeed, fortunate in those who are their superiors at the Home Office. One has only to go there with suggestions or to put one's own views forward to know that they will be carefully considered and that, if possible, something will be done.

I want to draw the Home Secretary's attention to one or two points in which, I think, improvement is desirable. A distinguished judge said a few years ago that a criminal case tried itself. That may be so, but no more difficult task can be given to any man than that of having to sentence a prisoner. You know when to pass a sentence of imprisonment in the second division. You do that because a man has no criminal record and you are anxious to shield him from contamination with hardened cases. The difficulty I find is whether to pass a sentence of imprisonment with or without hard labour, because imprisonment with hard labour inflicts an extraordinary anomaly upon the prisoner. There is nothing more revolting to the public conscience nowadays than the infliction of pain by way of punishment, except in cases of the extreme penalty or of flogging—matters of controversy into which I will not enter now. Does the Committee realise that the only difference nowadays between imprisonment with hard labour and without is that for 14 days the unfortunate man who is sentenced to hard labour has to sleep without a mattress on a hard bare board for no reason at all? What earthly justification can there be for that? Think of the mental distress of men who are compelled for the first 14 days to sleep on a bare board. It is a relic of barbarism.

The Home Secretary has pointed out that many gaols have been closed and how antiquated they were. We have now carried the matter to the other extreme. Take the north of England, for instance. In the old days there was a county gaol at Carlisle for Westmorland and Cumberland, and we had prisons at Lancaster, Preston, Manchester and Liverpool. In North Wales there was one at Beaumaris. Now there is no prison for the reception of prisoners and of persons on remand whose guilt has not been established north of Manchester or Liverpool. Assume the case of a poor unfortunate servant girl or someone in that walk of life committing a crime in Blaenau Festiniog. Does the Committee realise that there is no accommodation for her when she is on remand? And while inquiries are proceeding, it may be for six weeks or two months, she is literally dragged from one end of the country to another. I had a case in my circuit of an accused man who travelled 1000 miles by train while he was on remand.

There is something wrong somewhere. Think of the mental anguish of a prisoner who is taken right away, not merely to the other end of the county, but almost to the other end of the country, perhaps, and forced to travel that long distance time after time in order to attend the local police court. The solution is so simple. It is true that prison jurisdiction has been taken away from the county authorities, but we ought to insist upon having in every county town a central remand station with, let us say, eight cells. It would be perfectly easy to put an experienced warder and wardress in charge. There would be no question of detention in the sense of punishment. I am sure that the local clergy would be only too glad to provide religious services, and the local doctors only too ready to do what was necessary should occasion arise. Why on earth cannot we face up to the facts and make it a condition of a town being an assize town that there should be in it some, shall we call it, remand home?

That brings me to one more point. An hon. Member below the Gangway said that the essential thing to do is to keep people out of gaol. I say, frankly, that I am one of those who, as long as I occupy a judicial position, will never take the responsibility of sending a boy to Borstal unless it is necessary to do so. Borstal is undoubtedly and beyond question the very finest remedy for the child who is down and out. If there is a poor little fellow who needs not merely discipline but assistance in getting his feet on to the ladder of life, and who has nobody else to help him, Borstal is a most excellent place for him, but in cases such as I used to come across in my younger days of children who have simply gone wrong—and the excuse used to be "too many cinemas"—to take such children from a respectable home and put them away from the influence of that home for three years is a proposition in which I am not prepared to concur.

I will give another instance to illustrate what I mean. Only three days ago I had before me nine youthful criminals. All of them had been before me at previous sessions within the last six months, and they were all cases in which the confidential report had recommended Borstal treatment, and the course I adopted was to put each of those boys on probation to come up for sentence two sessions later. I said to each boy, "I am giving you this chance and I want you to take advantage of the op- portunity I am giving you." I put each of the boys on probation under a Catholic or Protestant probation officer, according to their religion and I said to them "Here is your chance, do not let me down." At the end of the period eight of those boys came before me, one had absconded—only one out of the nine—and the report of the probation officers was that in every single case the boys had made good and were doing excellently. What I had told these boys before was this: "You are coming back in six months' time. Do not waste your time wondering what is going to happen to you if you do not go straight, because I will tell you now. In six months' time, if you have played the fool, and that is the only word for it, then with your record you will commence three years in Borstal, which otherwise you would commence to-day." I think the course I took has saved those boys and got them on to their legs.

The Home Secretary knows as well as I do of the wonderful work done by probation officers. The decrease in crime is due to the fact that when a lad goes wrong because of his environment at home he has got some older man who will take him by the hand and keep him straight, but the difficulty is that there are no, or scarcely any, remand homes at present. In Manchester, which the hon. Member opposite knows so well, there is a most excellent institution run, I think I am right in saying, by the Church of England, called Park Hill. I do not think Park Hill gets any Government grant and it is in serious financial difficulties. Recently I had to deal with a boy and wanted to do what I had done so often, and that is put him back to give him a chance, and make it a condition that he was to reside in a remand home. There was, unfortunately, no Catholic remand home in Manchester; I was told that the only one was in London, and to send him there would make it impossible for him to continue in his employment in Manchester. Nor, may I add, is there in Manchester where it is so necessary, a remand home for those of the Jewish faith. Of course we cannot have remand homes for every one of the religious denominations, but we ought to have in the large cities throughout the country remand homes for boys and others who have been put on probation.

I am anxious to pay my tribute, at a later stage, to the work of the Home Office in connection with approved schools, but I want to conclude my observations on this part of the subject with these remarks: We hear to-day a lot about juvenile crime, but to my mind juvenile crime is not the greatest problem. The problem of the present day is presented by those who are rather more than adolescents. We get cases of children going about and pulling pipes and lead out of houses, and they are dealt with, probably, by the juvenile course, but the problem, if we look at the criminal statistics, is how to deal with lads of from 19 to 25, or possibly 26, who after having had chance after chance given to them, have of deliberate choice decided to follow the wrong turning. It is the duty of all those of us who have to administer justice on the Bench and, if I may say so with the greatest respect, of the Home Office authorities, to do all we can to save them from themselves. Wakefield has been a most wonderful success, and I wish we knew more about it, because sometimes the question arises, "Shall I send a young man of 21 or 22 who has got too old almost for, dare one call it, school control, to Borstal, or am I to pass a sentence which he will serve at Wakefield?" We welcome Wakefield.

I cannot imagine any more difficult problem than that of the habitual criminal. What happens is that a jury is sworn to find out whether he is guilty of the particular offence with which he has been charged, and if the jury find him guilty then comes the question "Is this man a habitual criminal?", and, if you know your work, another jury is sworn to try that question. A record is put in which may be of the most appalling character, but you cannot convict him as a habitual criminal if there is the slightest evidence that he has made an endeavour to go straight at any time, and that is as it should be. The difficulty is that when the jury have found that he is a habitual criminal, you cannot send him away for five years' preventive detention unless you have first passed a sentence of penal servitude. One knows that the man's career is hopeless and that in the public interest he ought to be under preventive detention. I ask the Home Secretary whether it would not be possible so to amend the law that it would be possible to pass a comparatively, short sentence of imprisonment or imprisonment with hard labour, and then to make the man begin straight away on his period of preventive detention, which is the last chance he has got, without having to inflict upon him a sentence of penal servitude for what may be a comparatively small offence compared with his previous record.

I have detained the Committee far too long and I apologise. I speak rarely in the House, but I speak on this matter because it is one on which I feel deeply. The way in which the prison population is going down and down in England is magnificent, and I say without fear of contradiction that it is due to right hon. Members who have held the Minister's high office, due to those who assist them in the Home Office, whether on the Front Bench or in Whitehall, and it is equally due to the loyal men and women who are carrying out a really Christlike life in administering the law for fallen humanity.

I did not interrupt the hon and learned Member because his remarks were linked up very much with each other; but his last remarks went a little beyond this Vote, and it is a matter which cannot be developed by subsequent speakers.

I cannot speak with the experience and the eloquence of the hon. and learned Member who has just sat down. My experience has been rather different from his in that I have been both policeman and magistrate, and am now an administrator; I have gone through the whole course. I want first of all to pay a compliment and to ask the Home Secretary to continue the good that he did on my appeal. It was a case like this. I had a complaint, not from the individual but from a community, of a man who had been sent to Broadmoor as a criminal lunatic. He had been there 35 years and he is there yet. There have been many attempts made or appeals made from a medical point of view to have a medical examination of him. That has never been granted in this country as far as I know. Now we have succeeded in getting the Home Office to agree that there ought to be facilities of that sort to satisfy patients, relatives and the community that if there is a possibility' of a man having recovered from that terrible disease he should be relieved after 20 or, 30 years.

I must admit that I was afraid to go to the Home Office because it is a cold place to enter. It is known as the cold door. It is the senior service. Having been through all the services of the Home Office in my lifetime I knew the difficulty in getting there. I pay the Home Secretary the tribute that after a time he was wonderfully helpful. I must pay a compliment also to the Superintendent of Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum. I have been connected with a mental institution for 35 years, as a member of a Committee, and I have taken a keen interest in it. I asked whether I might have the services of this Superintendent. I might say that we look upon superintendents as rather officious, but I will say this for the gentleman concerned. When I went down to the Institution after having got the leave of the Home Secretary I went to the prison and interviewed this poor fellow. The Superintendent gave me every facility that I desired. He said, "Now, Mr. Ritson, go where you like and do what you like. You seem to know your job. I shall be either in the presence of this poor fellow or just outside." I met in him an official who not only knows his job but has a soul.

I feel that this work ought to be continued. When anyone has been locked up under conditions like these for any such term, there ought to be an opportunity for a mental examination. It is only now that we are becoming wise in the matter of treatment. It used to be the custom to lock people up and put them in strait jackets. You do not right a mind in that way, but destroy it. What we are doing now in mental institutions is to make them brighter. The brighter you make them the brighter you make your patients. If you apply that rule to prisons, instead of making them dark, the more you train the mind of a prisoner to like something bright in his homelife when he gets back. That applies to everything in our mental institutions and prisons. From my own town of Sunderland we sent the police band to Durham prison. This story may seem rather humorous. We had a man with a tremendous criminal record. It was not a question of a month here or there. One day he was seen listening to the police band outside. The Superintendent of Police who is now to be our Chief Constable, said to him, "What are you standing here for?" He replied, "I like music. When I was in one of the prisons they made me leader of the band, and I have liked music ever since." The police became so interested in him that they got him his unemployment relief, they hired a little place for him to live in and he lives there now, not as a stranger or a criminal but with a desire to go straight. As he said, "You can depend on me, Mr. Superintendent. You have pleaded with me not to steal. I cannot help it in any other place, but you can make sure that I will never do it in this town because of what you have done for me." If such a thing can be done there it can be done in the whole world.

I can assure the Home Secretary that some of us are very anxious indeed that every avenue should be searched before a boy is sent to prison for the first time. Before the Home Secretary can carry out that idea he will have to get the co-operation of the Lord Chancellor. We have benches to-day where the magistrates always give the First Offenders Act full play, while there are others who never think of it. Let me give an example. I shall not mention names. It is the case of a boy finishing his schooling. His father has been out of work for years and his parents were looking forward to the boy bringing in, this July or September, something towards their food. He has no money with which to buy books to develop his mind. He goes to a bookstall and picks up a book without asking the leave of the stallholder, because he wants to develop his mind to pass his examination. The book is not missed and the boy wades into the book. He cannot buy another book, but he finds some money in an envelope and he takes it out. The act is not discovered, but he goes along to the police and says: "My conscience is pricking me. I cannot rest any longer. I wanted to pass the examination, but I am poor and my father is poor."

The police had to deal with him. He went to his principal, who tried to help him. He says: "I cannot rest. I must tell where I got the money and the books." The principal went down to the bookstall, where they had not missed the book; nobody could have found the boy out with regard to the money that he had -taken to get the books which he desired, but he was guilty, and had to come before the bench of magistrates. People said that the magistrates would never dream of convicting a boy for a first offence of that kind, and so no lawyer was engaged to defend him. The result was that he got two months. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame"]. He came up on Coronation day and his pitiful cry to me was: "When my prison sentence is finished, it will be only beginning when I come out." When we deal with the Board of Education in respect of this case I hope they will give us a sympathetic hearing. I hope also that the right hon. Gentleman will give us his sympathy, because that boy's life is ruined. Everybody would admit that his mind ought to be cultured and saved, instead of the boy being sent to gaol.

I used to he in the police force, and it was sometimes my duty to take people to goal. Very often a policeman is compelled to do things which he feels are wrong. Sometimes a boy is selling oranges or fruit on the footpath, and I have again and again had to bring such offenders before the court, and they have been sent for five years to an industrial school. I think that sort of thing is wrong. It is hard for a boy to be looked after in an industrial school. I never used to like to have a prisoner going to prison for the first time chained to a man who had been going there for many years. I remember the pitiful looks of the boy when he heard the loose gibes of the fellow who was hardly ever out of prison. It was a situation which, if you had any love for humanity, made you feel your position keenly. On one such occasion the boy who was going to prison for the first time was terrified at being linked to the other prisoner. I could not help it. The man set out to terrify the poor lad and I could not stop him. Although I was physically endowed and physically desirous of doing so, it would have been illegal for me to do so. It is wrong that you should link with an old prisoner one who is making his first journey to prison. They could be given separate compartments or sent separately. They should be treated as first offenders in a first offenders' atmosphere.

If the new Home Secretary is sympathetic towards developing a new atmosphere and a new outlook in prison life, I assure him that we will support him from this side of the House. He should not be afraid to develop new prisons. I do not know whether all prisons are dark and dreary. I have been in Durham goal a few times, and it does not seem a very delightful place to stop in. There are prisons that make one shudder to go past them, let alone go inside. On the other hand, looking on the surroundings of Broadmoor made one wish to be inside. If prisoners could be given companionship that will make their lives brighter, instead of a hard officialdom, I believe the result would be to make new minds in prisons. What must it feel like to thousands of strays in society in whom nobody has any interest and who look upon their goalers as people, not with a whip, but with a voice and a foot? I have taken scores of boys and girls, and they always believe that once they have got the hall-mark of prison upon them they are done for life. Let the new Home Secretary try to give these young people a new opportunity and a new avenue that will lift them from their slough of despond and make them feel that somebody is looking after them. I correct my own children when they go wrong, but I should never dream of destroying their characters. Those are the nation's children, and many of them are very clever.

When I visited Broadmoor the superintendent said to me: "We have some very clever people here." I said "I know you have. They would not be here otherwise." The Superintendent said: "We once had a man in here who compiled columns of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" under an assumed name. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) is very keen on quoting the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," but he little knows the source of its inspiration. Perhaps that is why he makes such witty speeches. If we can find minds like those within prison walls, it is the duty of the State to give them an avenue, and help and sustenance. I hope that the new Home Secretary will set out on a path that will be of benefit not only to our community but to the world.

I do not wish to speak in any extended way on this matter, because Scottish prisons are of more interest to me than the prisons in England; but I have a general interest in this problem, an interest that is different from that of the Home Secretary, the ex-Home Secretary, a policeman or a judge. My interest is of a different kind; I see the whole thing from a different angle; and I just cannot associate myself with the sort of "Oxford Group" spirit of general good will and congratulation that seems to prevail, and the idea that everything is going swimmingly so far as prisons are concerned. I hope that the new Home Secretary's arrival in that office will mean a big change in general administration inside the prisons. I do not, however, know of any office during my years in Parliament where a man has entered so full of good intentions and, within a very brief period, has fallen under the heel of the official dominating department.

Can any Member of the House, of several years' standing, think of any substantial improvement that has been made in prison administration during the times of all the various Home Secretaries that we have had? I cannot think of one. The general standard of life in the prisons remains what it was, and the essential conception of imprisonment remains precisely the same as it was. An hon. Member whom I know to be very benevolently minded on these matters shakes his head. I know of a whole lot of things that have been written in reports, and I have heard the Home Secretary to-day talking about the payment of wages to prisoners for work done. That presents itself to the ordinary person outside as a very great and benevolent advance, but look at the Vote which we are discussing. The Vote for wages for prisoners is £6,900 for the year, and there are 11,000 prisoners. If that is worked out, it will be seen to represent something like 10s. per head per annum, and the Home Secretary makes a very great point about this great reform by which wages are going to be paid to prisoners which they can spend on little luxuries. Ten shillings per annum is the average allowance made.

I do not want to interrupt the hon. Member, but this small recompense for good work done obtains in only a few prisons, and it is not fair to think that it applies in all prisons.

It is only now beginning.

I know that the special arrangement to which the tight hon. Gentleman referred this morning only applies to one or two experimental places, but the general question of payment for conduct and good work applies to all, and always has done; and this £6,900, as far as I can gather, is the total provision for the ordinary remuneration that is given to all prisoners for good conduct and good work and the special allowances that are to be paid to these special prisoners as well. I am very dubious as to what the special prisoners will get. When I was in prison—[An HON. MEMBER: "Shame!"]—I do not feel any sense of shame at all; it was a bit of my life, and I take it with the rest of it. I hope it does not do other prisoners any harm to know that men in this House have been in prison. In that experience of prison, I found that what made men angry was the suspicion that there was favouritism, that so-and-so was a pet of the governor, or that there was nasty discrimination against a particular man. Where you have what are called privileges, that can be doled out by the governor to those whose faces he likes, and withheld from those others whose appearance he does not like, you are establishing the basis for very great disquiet and unhappiness among the prison population. I would ask the Home Secretary to watch that aspect with the very greatest care, and I would ask that, in regard to selection for special opportunities, special privileges, special advantages or special courses of treatment, some other authority should come in than the immediate officers, whether the governor, the chief warder or the warders, who are in day-to-day charge of the prisoners concerned.

I want to ask some specific questions about these matters. Prisoners now have a right of complaint to visiting committees and to the Home Secretary himself. Can the right hon. Gentleman give the Committee any statistics about prisoners' complaints against the prison authorities, showing how many such complaints have been made, and how many prisoners' complaints have been upheld, first to visiting committees and, secondly, to the Home Secretary himself? Is there any case, if I may put it in this bald way, where a prisoner making a complaint against the prison authorities has ever had his complaint substantiated, either by the visiting committee or by the Home Office? On the other hand, there are certain punishments that a governor can only impose upon prisoners with the consent of visiting committees. Can the Home Secretary give us any statistics as to how many complaints have been put forward by governors against prisoners to visiting committees, and how many of them have been rejected by visiting committees as unsubstantiated? I would also like to know how many prisoners are undergoing the preventive detention which has been referred to. I understand, Sir Dennis, that you ruled that some references made by the hon. and learned Member for Warrington (Mr. Goldie) were out of Order, but that, I imagine, was only so far as the legislative side was concerned.

With regard to remand homes, that matter comes under the next Vote, but the matter to which I referred in the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Warrington as a matter which was entirely outside either of these two votes was a question of the administration of justice.

Any prisoner undergoing preventive detention has a right to put forward his petition to the Home Office, either for release or for other things, and I want to know how many such petitions, say within the last five years, have been sent up to the Home Office, and how many, if any, have ever been granted. There is one other point to which I should like to refer. We are always told about the very sympathetic attitude of everyone, from the Home Secretary right down through the whole gamut of the prisons. Everyone is so sympathetic, so nice; indeed, one hon. Member went so far as to describe it as Christ-like. I must have been unfortunate in the warders, the governors, and the Home Secretaries that I have met in the course of my life. I must admit that I often wondered how a prison warder could spend a lifetime on that job and at the end of his service retain so many human qualities, but having admitted that, do not let us exaggerate.

I wrote a month or two ago to the Home Secretary. I had received a letter from an ex-convict in Chelsea. I had forgotten for the moment that that was the right hon. Gentleman's constituency. He ought to have written to the right hon. Gentleman and not to me. The right hon. Gentleman was his Parliamentary representative. At the best I was only a sort of trade union delegate, or something of that kind. He wrote to me from Beaufort Street, Chelsea, saying he was an ex-convict. He had been doing his best to go straight. He had been unable to get employment. He applied to the local public assistance committee for relief. They told him there was nothing for him but the workhouse. He said, "I cannot rehabilitate myself in civil life in the workhouse. I have to have some wherewithal to live." I wrote to the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary said, "It has nothing to do with us. It is no concern of ours." I think that is shocking. It is disgraceful. Perhaps they objected to my interfering because it was from Chelsea, but I find in every matter in which I have to do with the Home Office a curtness and a rudeness which I do not find in any other Department. They just say, "No,"—it is not written, but it is there on the paper—"to Hell with you." That is the Home Office answer. If they do that to a Member of Parliament, what will they do to some fellow in a prison cell in Dartmoor? What will they do to a fellow in Parkhurst if they cannot be decently polite to a public representative?

I understand that the Dartmoor prisoners and prison warders have been complaining year after year about the water supply. I am told it has been analysed and proved not to contain deleterious matter, but it is generally felt by everyone who has been in there that it is unpalatable to taste and disagreeable to look at. That is a simple elementary thing which could be put right in two minutes. Similarly with food supplies. Surely the Home Office buys decent food material. Why can it not be cooked and presented to the prisoners in decent fashion? We ought to run these things fairly, justly, economically, and efficiently.

The whole Committee respects and honours the hon. Member who has just spoken even when it disagrees with him. He has spoken from his own experience, but it is an experience of long ago. He challenged the Committee to say what changes and improvements have taken place under successive Home Secretaries. I wish I could have taken him on a joint deputation which I took to interview Sir George Cave 20 years ago. This group, representing members of every party in the House, went to him to plead for the abolition of the silence system, to beg for further medical care and examination and better classification of prisoners. The then Home Secretary considered that no change was needed. He made an adamantine defence of the existing position. He saw no need for further classification or for inquiry, and he would not consider a modification of the silence system. All the changes that were asked for then have been accomplished.

Two or three weeks ago I was at Wakefield. The then Home Secretary laid the foundation stone of a new prison officers' training school. I could wish that his eminent predecessor might have lived to hear the speech that he made. I endeavoured in vain to get Sir George Cave to admit that the reform of the prisoner was an object of the prison system. The late Home Secretary laid it down that the object that the Prison Commissioners had before them was that the prisoner should have an opportunity of going out a better citizen than he came in, and the Prison Commissioners themselves in a report some years ago made it clear in so many words that that was the object of prison training. We are very far from having attained the ideal, as they themselves would be the first to admit, but the Prison Commissioners have been for years the best of prison reformers, and the achievement that has already been reached is a very real one.

I am not speaking only from a study of books. For some 16 years I have been into prisons as a visitor. I had a weekly class in the prison at Armley in the days of the old silence system. I saw the change of atmosphere when the silence system was abolished. Only 18 years ago if a prison officer found a young lad in prison for the first time, weeping, broken down, as I have seen them again and again, if he laid his hand on his shoulder and said, "Cheer up my lad, this need never happen again. Make the best of it, and with God's help it will be a turning point in your life," if he were overheard by another officer, it would have been the duty of that officer to report him to the governor, and it would have been the duty of the governor to reprimand him for undue familiarity to a prisoner. The whole of that has been swept away. The prison officers are themselves encouraged to try to help men and youths to make the best of their opportunity in prison and, as the Home Secretary said in his most sympathetic speech, a very great deal has been done already in that direction. It is most important that from this Committee there should go out to the Prison Commissioners and the prison service a message of encouragement and thanks for the great work that they are doing. They themselves will always welcome criticisms and suggestions which are intended to improve that work.

I agree with the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) that something could, and should be done for the improvement of prison diet in the matter of monotony. I hope that the Home Secretary will look into that. I cannot see why a prisoner, if in prison for years, should never have fresh fruit. I do not ask for pampering or luxuries, but the question of prison diet and the monotony of it—not the wholesomeness of it, because it is wholesome—should be looked into, and some attempt should be made to get a greater variety. I think that every Member in the Committee will have heard with great satisfaction what the Home Secretary said about prison buildings. That is the greatest obstacle now to prison reform. We have, all over this country, prison buildings that were built on the plan devised by Jeremy Bentham in his famous work which has been taken as a model all over the world. I have seen in India, in Germany and in America prisons modelled on the English prison plan, with great galleries like the four outstretched fingers of a hand leading up to the observation centre, so that there should be the control of the prison with the minimum of prison officers. It is all based upon a mechanical idea of economy utterly remote from the whole spirit of the present Prison Commissioners and from the spirit of the Home Secretary. These prisons have been built most substantially to last not only for generations, but for centuries; nothing can be done with them, as they are, and in many cases, they need replacing by other buildings.

I am very glad that the Home Secretary mentioned the wonderful experiment, although it is a small one, which is being carried on near Wakefield in a little, quiet woodland valley, where prisoners are working in conditions approximating to freedom, trusted and responding to the trust, living not in hideous prison buildings, but in simple wooden barracks which they put up for themselves. That can be carried out in other places, and I hope that the Home Secretary will lay down the plan for that during his term of office. It may not be possible to do it at once. There are national economic conditions that make that difficult, but it ought to be possible to have the plans made now, to have the land purchased where it is necessary, and to have a great scheme ready prepared and to make the beginning. I hope that the first beginning will be in the direction of a special prison in such rural conditions for junior offenders—young men between the years of 19 and 25. In Holland, the Netherlands Government are already undertaking that, and they have actually in force there a measure which I wish we could see here. In all cases of young offenders, I believe that now there is an opportunity of remand to a special observation institution where these boys and girls are given class work, and, if they are older, they are given manual and other work to do under observation and training. Sentence is not passed finally by the court until they have had three months under specialist observation and training there, and the result of course, is, that there is far fuller knowledge available for the court before sentence is passed, and in a great number of cases imprisonment is not necessary at all. That is something which, I hope, we may be able to emulate before long in this country, but, in particular, I hope that the Home Secretary will go forward with the proposal that he has outlined for the replacement of the out-of-date prisons of to-day, by better, simpler and more human institutions. Any visitor who went to the great, massive prison at Armley and looked at it could well imagine that there might have been inscribed upon the gateway the words which Dante saw inscribed over the portal of the infernal city:

"All hope abandon ye who enter here."

The whole of the buildings are permeated with that atmosphere, and it is a terrible handicap on the prison staff; who are bringing the spirit of good will and sympathy into their work, to be working under such conditions. I do not want to see any fanciful motto painted or engraved over the prison of the future. I think there is an irony in the motto that you see on the French prisons. If you see a prison in France you see:

"Liberté, égalité, fraternityé."

over the door. But I want to see the spirit of fraternity expressing itself to some extent in the building, and still more, as it is increasingly to-day, in the administration, of our prisons. No system of buildings and no system even of wages, which I welcome—it is really not a question of wages but of an allowance and an encouragement to work—can give us what we want. There is no mechanical method which can be supplied. At the end of all there is the mysterious element of human personality. It is the contact with the right kind of personality and the right kind of spirit that is needed. Under the present system the Prison Commissioners are appealing to the esprit de corps, to the spirit of comradeship in their great experiment at Wakefield, and the prisoners respond to that. They will do it increasingly, I believe, as the Home Secretary and those in the Department for which he is responsible bring into the prison work of the future that spirit which was so delightfully manifested in the speech that he made to the Committee to-day.

I should like to congratulate the Home Secretary upon taking up his new office. He is most fortunate in his very efficient Under-Secretary, and I trust that the association will continue to the benefit, at any rate, of our prison life. I was very glad to listen to the remarks of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Warrington (Mr. Goldie) when he mentioned plank-bed punishment. I remember the governor at one of our largest prisons coming to me and saying, "When you sentence a man to go to prison, I hope, if you can do it at all, that you will say second division?' The only difference it makes is that he will not be able to sleep upon a plank-bed." I have tried it myself, and I certainly did not like it: I am glad that the hon. Member for the English Universities (Mr. Harvey) has mentioned Leeds Prison, because, for my sins, I am one of the official visiting justices for that prison, and the visiting justices for years have been endeavouring for instance to get the minor reform of having the prison properly lighted. If any hon. Gentleman has been anywhere near Armley and has seen that terrible looking, grim Bastille as we call it in the West Riding, he will agree that, at any rate, we are entitled to electricity, if not to floodlighting. I am glad that the Prison Commissioners have at long last agreed to the better lighting of that prison.

I would ask the consideration of the Home Secretary to the plea of the visiting justices that Leeds Prison is not suitable for men serving penal servitude sentences. We have appealed time and again to the Prison Commissioners. 1' am aware that the policy of the Commissioners is to send men serving penal Servitude sentences of three years to what we call our county and district prisons, but the Prison Commissioners should take into serious consideration the type of prison. Sometimes we have had 20 or 30 penal servitude prisoners in Leeds Prison, a prison without any means of extensive recreation or even the means of expanding one's lungs by a decent bit of walking, The only chance for the prisoner to exercise is provided by the rings for the morning manual walking for a prescribed period. That is the only chance for recreation that a prisoner has in Leeds Prison, owing to the lack of room.

I would also suggest to the Home Secretary that no, long-tem prisoner should be sent to a prison like Leeds, and there are other similar prisons owing, to the restricted type of occupation. If, there is a deadening influence upon a prisoner it is that he is subject to a prescribed task which is absolutely mechanical. Some weeks ago a question was put asking the Home Secretary whether it was true that oakum-picking had been re-introduced into Leeds Prison. I am pleased to say that that rumour was wrong. There had, however, been a suspicion that oakum-picking had been re-introduced into this prison. Someone who knew something about prison administration asked: "Why do you not mention the treadmill e the same time?" I should like to say that in Leeds Prison the work is done admirably by an admirable governor and a good staff, but under the most restricted conditions, and I would again emphasise that it is not a place suitable for the serving of long sentences.

The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) asked whether anyone could quote cases where the Home Secretary has acted on the advice either of a governor or of a visiting committee. From my experience of years I have known instances where the Home Secretary has acted upon the advice of the visiting justices. On very few occasions during my visits, which are very regular, have I found any prisoner penalised. Prisoners appeal with confidence to the visiting committee, for the same reason that some of us like to get up in this House in order to hear the sound of our own voices. Some prisoners suffer from speechitis. They like to go before the visiting committee and make a speech on their grievances. If the grievance is well-founded, it is remedied. I will quote one instance. A man serving a sentence of penal servitude appealed. The Prison Commissioners turned down his appeal. If he had appealed again to the Home Secretary he would have been in danger of his remission marks being knocked off, because his complaint would have been judged frivolous. The visiting committee appealed on his behalf and appointed a deputation to wait on the Prison Commissioners. The deputation happened to be myself. The Prison Commissioners turned me down. We came again with a petition. Like Oliver Twist, we asked for more, and the result was that the Prison Commissioners, on the medical reports, saw that what we were asking for was reasonable, and the man has been sent to a more congenial prison, where there are more extended opportunities for diverse work.

I should like to pay my tribute to the experimental work that is being done on behalf of prisoners. I was present at the inception of the work on Lord Allendale's estate, seven or eight miles outside Wakefield. I went there when it was scrub land, with a cookhouse and a lean-to building where prisoners might shelter when it was raining. The men at that time slept in prison at Wakefield and had to make the journey morning and night. I have been present when only one warder was left with half the prisoners in the reservation, while the others had gone back to prison. Those prisoners could have walked out of the reservation, because there was only one warder to prevent them, but the men made no attempt at escape. The men are placed on their honour, and there has never been one attempt at escape from that beautiful place which has been set up for the benefit of prisoners seven or eight miles outside Wakefield. That is an experiment which might well be extended.

I am pleased that the Home Secretary has extended the policy of payment for extra work done. The hon. Member for Bridgeton said that very little progress has been made, but progress has certainly been made at Wakefield. The Wakefield experiment is the direct result of the presence there of distinguished inmates, conscientious objectors, during the War. Since those days that prison has not been allowed to revert to the type of an old lag's prison. I have gone to the prison on various occasions to visit distinguished colleagues of mine, public servants, who were His Majesty's guests, shall I say, on account of trying to evade Excess Profits Tax. I was pleased to notice that in that prison the house system is in operation. There is St. George's House, St. Patrick's House and two other houses with the names of patron saints. I found the keenest competition in sports between the houses. In cricket they could do better than the House of Commons cricket team, who were put out for 36 the other day. I found that under the house system there is the keenest competition in cricket and football and the various houses are very anxious that they shall not be let down by any slackers in their midst.

The brilliant idea of establishing the crews system is in operation. Instead of wearing the broad arrow on the tunic, prisoners wear a blazer with crossed oars on it. There has been psychology at work. The crews receive so many marks for merit. If they are able to earn a few marks extra, or if they are not on crew work but are weaving some beautiful cloth which is well worth weaving, or making some of the mats that we find in the smoking-room and other parts of this building, some of which come from Wakefield, they receive special recognition. When they have been set a merit task and the task has exceeded the allotted task they receive a special reward which may be, say, 6d. Sixpence is a lot if you have not got it. They may also get a packet of gaspers. It is a nice privilege to be able to smoke and to earn an extra sixpence. Whoever evolved that brilliant idea is to be very warmly congratulated. I am glad that the system has been extended to other prisons. This payment for accomplishing a little beyond the allotted task, whether in producing cabbages or a little extra cloth, is a very good principle. Stationery and printing business has now been introduced into Wakefield Prison.

I am glad that the Home Office has recognised the brilliant work of the governor of that prison, and have asked him to commence similar work at Wormwood Scrubs. I have visited Wormwood Scrubs and could tell at once that there was a decent atmosphere. I listened to a lecture given to 100 boys—I was sorry to see so many boys there—who were being told something about football. It may be a very mundane subject, but it was all to the good. I should like to ask how the experiment of paying this extra sum for a little extra work is getting on at Maidstone, where I am told the system has been introduced. I was delighted to find that one of the most distinguished ornaments of the City of London was the highest paid man in Maidstone Prison, and that he actually earned is., the highest amount they can earn, under the new system of payment. I should like to pay my tribute also to the voluntary work done by people who give lectures in our prisons. The hon. Member for Bridgeton entirely misunderstood the hon. and learned Member for Warrington (Mr. Goldie). The work done by these voluntary bodies should receive the warmest commendation of all decent-minded men and women.

Nor would I forget the discharged Prisoners Aid Society to whom we owe a great deal for the work they do. I know a business man who gives one night per week to this work. They see every prisoner who leaves and the number of jobs which have been found is amazing when one considers the many difficulties there are in these days of finding work for men. These men and women get very little of the spot-light, but they are all the more to be commended because they bring home to prisoners the fact that they are not forgotten men or forgotten women. As a result of my experience in this House and sitting under your chairmanship, Sir Dennis, I compiled a few notes on Parliamentary procedure, and I have been permitted to retail them in one prison after another. I have found that the men—sometimes I have had as many as 500—are keenly interested in Parliamentary procedure and appreciated my explanation of Supply, and what it means before Parliament votes money to remedy their grievances. I found that they also appreciated Question Time, and when they heckled me it was apparent that one man who was in for poaching had a great grievance against country magistrates, as he hoped that this honourable House would pass a Bill for the abolition of country magistrates.

Let me also pay a tribute to the work which is being done by the heads of most of our Borstal institutions. They are working miracles, because they appear not merely to have a mechanical touch but an ethical touch and—I am not ashamed to use the phrase—a spiritual touch in their work. The experiment of training warders at Wakefield is a most valuable one. There are always 60 or 70 probation warders in residence, and there will be more when the new building is finished. I find that the men who leave Wakefield are radiating a new influence and a new spirit throughout our prisons, which is what we want in these days. We want the spirit of Wakefield carried throughout the land. These men are receiving a training which does not lead to any sloppy sentimentality but to what I would call a comprehensive sympathy, which is quite a different thing altogether. I trust that this experiment will be allowed to develop and that these men will be told that if they make good they can become governors of prisons. I hope that the governorship of a prison will not now be a close corporation.

I wish the hon. Member for Bridgeton would come with me to one or other of our prisons. Mention has been made of Russia and what they are doing there. One hon. Member has said that they have schools and workshops. So have we, and we had them even before Russia was thought of. We have playing-fields, cinemas, music, swimming, and all these things have been developed quietly without any stunt during the past few years by far-seeing Prison Commissioners who may have been in some cases pushed along by this honourable House. There has not been much mention of women prisoners, probably because their numbers are few. I saw a lady Prison Commissioner some time ago. I was almost afraid to meet her, she was rather fearsome looking, but when I heard her talk I found that she seemed to know most of the female prisoners by their Christian names, and to have a personal interest in them. It is interesting work, and it is good that in a debate of this kind we are able to contribute a little of what we know on the matter. I have a right to go into His Majesty's prison by night or day, and neither the Prison Commissioner nor the Home Secretary can stop me. When work in the prison is stopped and they say: "Visiting Justice. Have you any complaint?", the prisoner can make his complaint as a right and quite freely. That is something to be thankful for in our prison administration.

Does the chief warder accompany you?

The chief warder has nothing to do with me, and the prisoner can talk to me quite privately. I have had very few complaints, and chiefly it is advice that the men want. They are anxious about their wives and families and wonder if I can do anything to help them. These men are not forgotten, and as long as the Committee does its duty on Supply day, as it is endeavouring to do it to-day, they will not be forgotten. Shakespeare has been quoted to-day, and sometimes when I see these men, I say:

"Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all."

We are sinners all—on Coronation day 62 spoons were "pinched" from this House, either by hon. Members or their intimate relatives and friends. So I say, Why should be judge? That, at any rate, has made me charitable in the remarks that I have made.

There is no doubt that all hon. Members will join in paying a tribute to the efforts that have been made to humanise prison conditions in recent years. I would like to add my word of praise for the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for East Hull (Mr. Muff), and the invaluable work which is being done throughout the country by probation officers. Many important matters have been dealt with in this Debate, but I wish to deal with one topic only. I wish to ask the Home Secretary what developments have taken place in connection with the experiment which was started in August last when 19 long-term star convicts were sent from Maidstone to Dartmoor where they worked as a party and were usefully employed on agricultural work? That experiment seems to me to be capable of very great development, and I think it may do a great deal to help in humanising the lot of people who are in prison for long terms. I will quote one passage from the report which will, I am sure, have the approval of everyone who has directed his attention to this matter:

"Segregation from the ordinary convict population was easily arranged, and the experiment fully realised its object, which was to provide a change of scene and healthy outdoor work for these long-term men."

All hon. Members will realise what a great benefit it must be to those who are undergoing long terms of imprisonment to be taken away from the unhappy monotony of their ordinary surroundings and to do outdoor work in another place where they can perform useful service in which they can take some interest. Those of us who are interested in these matters appreciate the efforts of those who were responsible for this experiment. I would like to know whether it is proposed to continue the experiment and whether it may even be extended to those who are undergoing terms of imprisonment which are not as long as those of the 19 long-term star convicts to whom I have referred.

I could not give notice to the right hon. Gentleman that I intended to raise this matter, and consequently I shall understand it if he cannot give an answer today, but I hope that at some convenient time either the right hon. Gentleman or the Parliamentary Secretary, will be good enough to let me know what further experiments are being considered and whether the experiment could be adapted to the case of men undergoing shorter sentences. I think this sort of experiment might well be attempted in the case of other classes of prisoners and that nothing but good could come from it. The Debate to-day has dealt with matters of high importance, and I am sure all hon. Members will join in expressing the hope that the right hon. Gentleman and the officers under him, considering the successful efforts which have been made in recent years to humanise the whole system, will carry those efforts still further in years to come.

The remarks made by the hon. Member for East Hull (Mr. Muff) about the Wakefield reforms having been in operation before Russia was heard of, are a demonstration of the superficial attitude of the hon. Member towards this question. The hon. Member did not show any understanding of any side of the problem confronting us. I know the hon. Member is a visiting justice. I have seen many visiting justices, and all of them were simply pests to the prisoners. The visiting justice, accompanied by the chief warder, goes round and asks the most trifling and foolish questions, and then passes on. There may be 1,000 prisoners for him to see. He comes to the cell door, which is open, and asks, "How do you find yourself?" "Very comfortable." "That's good." Then he goes to the next cell and stops there for a moment.

The hon. Member spoke about spoons disappearing from the House, but if as many spoons had disappeared as there have been tributes thrown across the Floor by hon. Members, there would not be a spoon left in the place. There has been some talk about the terrible character of the prisons. We had a prison in Edinburgh, which was opened a year after Waterloo, and which has now been demolished. It was a ghastly place. The Home Office would be well repaid if they visited Edinburgh and walked round the new prison which replaced the old Calton Gaol. The new prison is a series of small two-flat buildings in the main, although there is one large building rather on the same lines as an ordinary prison. There are no heavy clanging doors, but light ones; and there are inlaid wooden floors.

The hon. Member may not discuss Scottish prisons, which come under the Scottish Vote.

Some hon. Members have said that the Home Office should go to see the prisons in Russia and others have suggested that they should see the prisons in Belgium; I was suggesting that they should go to see the prisons in Scotland.

The hon. Member is in order in inviting the English authorities to consider that, but he is not in Order in discussing.those prisons.

I was simply inviting the Home Office to go to see that prison and the character of the reforms that have been made. The prison is quite different from any other prison. That is the only point I wanted to bring out. I know that the Scottish prisons are under the Scottish Office.

Reference has been made to the abolition of the silence rule. I have been in prison when the rule was being operated and when it was very difficult indeed to get even a whisper here or there with somebody else. I have also gone to the prison and have been informed that the silence rule was abolished, but that is only a trick in many prisons. I want the Home Secretary to give particular attention to that fact. I know that in some prisons they are allowing the prisoners to walk in pairs occasionally on the exercise ground.

In association.

I know. I have worked in association and talked in association. I have walked across the yard at Wandsworth with one of the warders, and coming back it sounded like a market. Everybody was talking and the noise was deafening. It all depends on the warders. The position is that the silence rule is abolished and that you cannot be punished for talking, but the warder can say to the prisoners, "Stop that talking." If a prisoner continues to talk he can then be brought up before the governor for disobeying an order, and if a warder has the slightest feeling against a prisoner that kind of thing operates. Some warders will not allow any talking at all. I think, also, that something ought to be done in our prisons to make life easier for the warders themselves. Warders have spoken to me time and again and said that they are anxious to make things as easy and as humane as possible for the prisoners, but they are always afraid of another warder spying on them and reporting them to the governor. I know one or two warders here in London who are exceptionally humane men. They are ex-soldiers, and they are coming near to their pension period, and they are always afraid, if they stretch the regulations the least bit in favour of the prisoners, that some of the other warders will report them.

But the big question which I want the Home Secretary to consider is that of torture in British prisons. When I say "torture in British prisons" I know that many hon. Members will say to themselves, "There is no such thing." But there is torture in British prisons that surpasses anything known under the Inquisition. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Oh, yes. The main feature of the torture of the Inquisition was that it was physical torture. There are hon. Members here who get into a ferment of indignation—and I can understand it—about the flogging of juveniles, and even of adults. But a prisoner who commits some offence can be sentenced to flogging by the visiting magistrates, or he may be sentenced to flogging by the court when he is sent to prison. It is a terrible thing, but it is nothing to compare with the torture of the dark and silent cell. The most terrible torture that a man can experience is mental torture. There are men who can stand all kinds of physical suffering. They can allow their bodies to be racked and torn. But to be shut up in a cell day after day and night after night, only able to move six steps either way, is an experience that few men can stand.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) and I were in prison together, and I think hon. Members will understand what confinement in a narrow cell meant to a man like my hon. Friend who expresses in all his being the desire for freedom and movement, the desire to raise his face to the skies, and to shout to the mountains. He was put into a little cell, and even the warders in the prison understood what it meant to him. One of them said to me, "Willy, this is no place for a big decent fellow like that, though it is all right for you." He seemed to think that prison was the proper place for me, and I am sure a number of hon. Members would be in complete agreement with him on that point. But he could sense the difference in temperament between us.

There are prisoners who are nervous and sensitive. They cannot settle down to read or to study; they cannot entertain themselves in any way. It may be that a warder says something to them which they resent. They are nervous and irritable, and they make some retort to the warder as a result of which they are reported and sent to the silent cell. What does that mean? Every book is taken out of the cell, everything is taken out except the stool, and they have to sit on that stool or walk about all day and all night. I have seen them come out of that with their heads trembling and without any control over themselves. Perhaps the warder speaks to them again with the same result, and back they go to the silent cell. There is no torture like it anywhere. It is a torture that drives men mad. Are you going to stop it? I appeal to the Home Secretary to consider this matter. It is a terrible punishment to impose on any human beings, and it does not help them. It only destroys the men to whom it is applied. I have seen and the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) has seen the results of it. One of my own comrades, a young sensitive fellow, but one of the finest lads anyone could wish to see, was subjected to this treatment and one day he lost control of himself and smashed everything he could smash within reach, and when I went round to his cell the roofs and sides were covered with his blood. It is the terrible solitude and silence that threaten a man with complete mental breakdown.

Another point to which I would like to draw attention is the provision of books for prisoners. The situation sometimes develops in a prison that the library is in charge of some old chaplain who, being no use for anything else, has been found a job in the prison service. I have heard the warders themselves talking with contempt about prison chaplains and especially of one, here in London. But the chaplain is the man who censors the books, and decides what the prisoners are to read. When books were sent in to me and to some of my friends in Wandsworth Prison the chaplain stopped them, or if he did not stop them from coming to us, he did not allow them to be put into the library. I am not sug- gesting that the prisons should be made centres of Communist propaganda, but there are many books to which, I am sure, the Home Secretary would not object, but which the prison chaplains will not allow the prisoners to read. There should be some other method of dealing with this matter.

In regard to the lectures that are given in prisons, I do not know whether the Home Secretary will consider broadening them. I remember, down in Wandsworth, getting the opportunity to go to lectures, and a very nice little fellow was giving a lecture, but it was such stuff he was giving. In the middle of it I said "Excuse me, sir, but you cannot tell stuff like that to us. It is not possible that we should have to listen to it." Then, of course, one thing led to another, and I mentioned something about the proletariat, and there was a lot of trouble with the Governor about politics. But I can assure the Committee that for an intelligent prisoner to have to sit and listen to the kind of stuff that they get from some of these people—well, it might be a good thing if the Home Office arranged for these people to have a class, or a course, so as to endeavour to get them to understand something like the proper method of dealing with prisoners. There are some of these people who are very good. One or two from London whom I met have given a lot of time and service to that sort of thing, but others of them have the idea that when they go into a prison they are dealing with men in a mental condition similar to that of children, and they seem to want to talk to them like children. They are very anxious—Oh, so anxious—to be nice, and it is altogether the wrong method, so I would like the Home Office to give some attention to this matter.

I would also like the Home Office to take the suggestion of the hon. Member for Bridgeton about the food. Sometimes we had a terrible time with the food. When you have rung your bell, after getting your food shoved in, because you want to make a complaint, and the warder comes along, he is generally in a great hurry. He does not like to be held hack from going home for his own dinner, and he says to you, "Here, what is the matter with it? You fellows are never satisfied." It would be quite easy to avoid all that sort of thing if care was taken with the character of the food that was sent in and if time was allowed for preparing the meals and for the proper service of the food. The other thing that I would urge upon the Home Office is that they should give the prisoners work to do. I worked at making tags for mail bags, and I am an engineer.

Remember that all these men who are in prison are, in the main, just the same as you or I, but up against unfortunate circumstances; they have made a bit of a mistake that maybe you or I have made without having been discovered. I am satisfied that whenever I was in prison I never deserved to be in prison for what I was charged with, but it is quite possible that I have done many other things for which I was not charged but for which I might well have deserved to be in prison. I have met people coming into prison, young and old, and sometimes I have had very deep sympathy for some of the elderly men. It is a shame to put elderly men in there just as though they are the same as young men. I have seen elderly men coming in, of 65 and even 70 years of age. I saw one old fellow who had occupied a very important position. He was what, in my more venomous moments, I would call a bourgeois. He had made a blunder, and he came in there. It was terrible to see what that man suffered. I spoke to him many times and tried to encourage him all I could—and incidentally the Committee will gather that I did a lot of talking while I was in prison—but this old fellow suffered a hundred times more than the ordinary young or middle-aged person would suffer in similar circumstances. His whole past life meant that prison was such a complete change. It meant pulling him up by the roots and throwing him into surroundings that 'were absolutely different.

In setting up or building new prisons, consideration should be given not only to the young—though, of course, consideration should be given to the young prisoners and to the stars—but to the older men as well. I have seen some of these older men. Every time this old fellow of whom I was speaking just now came into the exercise yard, I tried to have a word with him, and it took him some time before he could answer back. He would always start, crying, and it is the most pathetic thing in the world to see a man of 70 years of age crying. You understand,.he had not been sleeping, and every morning, as soon as you spoke to him, this old fellow would break down. I have seen many other cases of that sort, and I do ask the Home Secretary that in putting up these new prison buildings he should not only consider the young, who are important and must be considered, because their lives are all before them, hut that he should do away with anything that could impose upon men, especially, old men, any unnecessary suffering such as that to which I have referred. I would again ask the Home Secretary to look into this question of the silent, dark cell, It is a terrible thing for any man, and before anyone condemns anyone else to the silent cell, he ought to be locked up himself in a silent cell for a week, and then he would understand what it Means. I do ask the Home Secretary to look,into these matters.

I cannot claim to have enjoyed, the same experience as the last speaker, never having served any time in prison., He might have been anything but a, placid and genial prisoner. But I rise to make a plea for the man who has been punished for his crime and who, on his release, is offered very little help from the Home Office or from anybody else. There is in London the Prisoners' Aid Society, and there is the Sheriff's Fund, supported by members and friends of the Corporation of the City of.London. I hold the view very strongly that very few men commit crimes from choice, I believe that there is good in every man, if you know how to find it. To one you can appeal to his sense of reason, and.to another to his sense of honour. I have found that among a certain class of the community the quickest way to get to a man's heart is to give him a good hiding, and I believe that, those who are in authority, if they dared—and I am one of those who did dare 20 years ago—could do a lot of good in, that way. At the time I am speaking of I had a very troublesome man in the battalion. I discarded my tunic and told him that we would have a little boxing contest, which, of course, was not boxing at all but was a fight. I came to the conclusion that I was bound to be winner either way, because if I beat him, he was friendly with me afterwards, and if he beat me, it had precisely the same result.

I think that one of the most dreadful things for a man who has served a sentence is to be discharged at the prison gates and met by some of his old pals. They point out the hopelessness of his position and induce him to get back into crime. If there was real sympathy shown to these men; if there was an opportunity offered to them to make good; if they could be taken away from their old environment; if an attempt were made to give them a clear start free from their old associations, the results would be most gratifying. The statistics of the Sheriff's Fund show that we have reclaimed something like 97 per cent. of the men who have served a term of imprisonment. There are no public funds for that purpose. I wish there were. Knowing the kindliness of the Minister, I was wondering whether something could be done, some machinery set up, to help the man who has paid for his crime to help him to get away from his old associates and his old environment and to make a fresh start.

I sometimes think it is a pity that men have to report to the police, for it always reminds them of terrible days I do not agree with the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) about corporal punishment. I would without hesitation, if I had the power, administer the cat to any brute who assaults children or commits robbery with violence. They generally pick on somebody who cannot defend themselves. Garrotting was stopped by flogging, and the cat would stop outrages against children and violent robberies. I agree with the hon. Member, however, when he talks about torture. There is something worse than physical torture, and that is mental torture. It is that mental torture from which I want to save these men. If we could set up some machinery to help the men who have been punished—for, after all, they have paid the penalty and ought not to be reminded of what they have done—and to give them a chance in life, the number of criminals would decrease year by year much more rapidly than we have seen during the last decade.

We have been talking on a somewhat morbid subject, of those who are incarcerated in His Majesty's prisons and of certain injustices that might be remedied in connection with those unfortunate enough to be His Majesty's guests for a period. I would like to put to the Home Secretary a point concerning a section of the community who are outside His Majesty's prisons. I refer to the many injustices being suffered by little theatrical companies owing to the advantage taken in certain districts of the law as it applies to stage plays and stage play licences. Years ago we had several hundreds of little companies going round the country. They were the training ground for the great actors of that day. There were also many portable travelling theatres which went from town to town.

I should be glad if the hon. Member would refer his remarks to the Vote under discussion.

I understood that we could raise the whole Home Office Vote.

We are now on the Prisons Vote.

I will, then, address the Home Secretary on a future occasion about the point I have in mind.

I wish to refer to the point raised by the hon. Member for Holborn (Sir R. Tasker) and to ask the Home Secretary to consider whether discharged prisoners might report to the probation officer instead of to the police? I ask that, even though the police might be inclined to disagree. One finds through experience in dealing with people who are placed on probation that these wonderful officers and that is a deserving description of the probation officers—are able to receive reports on those who are placed under their care without the employer knowing about what has happened and without their neighbours and friends knowing that they have been before the court or have been imprisoned. The probation officers are not only able to deal with these reports and present them in the right quarters, but they are able to render great assistance. In view of the difficulties, hardships and cruel conditions attaching to the discharged prisoner who finds that everyone is against him, and that it is difficult to re-establish himself, I suggest that the probation officers rather than the police should have the opportunity of dealing with them.

It is some years since there has been a debate on this Vote, and the Committee and the Home Office will be grateful to hon. Gentlemen opposite for having put down this Vote to-day, because everybody who has been present will agree that we have had an exceptionally interesting debate. With certain exceptions which I shall mention in a moment, the speeches of hon. Members have been decidedly friendly to the general spirit of prison administration, tempered from time to time with constructive suggestions for improvement. The exceptions were the speeches of the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) and of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton). I was impressed with the fact that while the hon. Member for West Fife started with his usual bellicosity—I am sure he will not quarrel with that description, for it is a recommendation—nevertheless, as he continued, his tone became more intimately personal and he made a genuine appeal to my right hon. Friend for consideration of the matter which he raised.

I think that our strongest critic to-day was the hon. Member for Bridgeton. I am not objecting to his criticism, for; while we invite friendly and constructive criticism, it is perhaps good for us to have a sharper bite in the tone of criticism. The hon. Gentleman, however, may have been influenced a little in his tone by what I was sorry to hear him say, namely, that he had received rather scant attention from the Home Office. I am sure he will accept it from me that I am genuinely sorry that he should have been given that impression. Although it may be that sometimes he raises questions as to what the attitude of the Home Office is bound rather rigidly by conditions of Statute or administration, I hope we may be able in the future to give him the impression that there is not the least intention to show any personal discourtesy. Personally I hold very strongly the view, and so does my right hon. Friend, that points put forward by Members of Parliament deserve at all times to be given the most careful consideration. That is the case particularly with this Debate, and my right hon. Friend authorises me to say that at the Home Office we shall go very carefully into all the large number of points which have been raised to-day.

Of course the Committee will not expect me to enter into details about every point, because that would be clearly impossible, and I know that another subject is to be brought forward, but there are some points with which I should like to deal at once. I think the Committee will agree when I say that we shall certainly pay particular attention to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Warrington (Mr. Goldie). There were points from many other speeches, particularly those of the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Ritson) and the hon. Member for East Hull (Mr. Muff) and others, which will require special attention, but I think the Committee was particularly impressed by the strong opinions which were expressed by the hon. and learned Member for Warrington, and I shall have a word to say later on some of his points.

The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) asked first about the prison population. The decline in the population is, as I think everyone will agree, very satisfactory. Last year the average population in all our establishments was about 10,000, and the present population stands at approximately the same figure—it was checked on Tuesday of this week. The numbers have been decreasing since 1932. There are several causes for that, with which the House is familiar, and one is the Money Payments Act, which has undoubtedly had a considerable influence on the prison population. The Committee which reported on that matter pointed out that in 1932 out of 53,000 imprisonments for all causes more than 20,000, or about one-third, were for default in the payment of sums of money—failure to pay fines or to make other financial payments. The Act did not come into operation until 1st January, 1936, but there was a slight fall in the figures of imprisonment for failure to pay money penalties in 1935, which was probably due to the effects of public opinion following the Report of the Committee, but since the Act has actually come into operation there has been a considerable fall. In 1932 the number of persons in prison in default of payment of fines was 11,244, next year it was 11,600, in 1934, 11,128, and in 1935 it fell to 10,542. In 1936, the first year of the operation of the new Act, the figure was 7,424. If we take the total of all imprisonments for failure to pay fines or to meet maintenance orders or affiliation orders or to pay rates, in 1932 they numbered 20,416 and in 1936, 11,623. I think the Committee will be to a considerable extent satisfied with that trend.

Another factor having an effect on the prison population is the extended use of the system of probation, and there are also a number of other considerations into which I will not enter now, but I think the Committee will be interested to hear the figures with regard to recidivism. It is only recently that actual figures have become available in this country in regard to the extent to which those who have been in prison return to prison again. The only figures from which useful conclusions can be drawn are those concerning the period since 1930. Of 30,000 persons received into prison for the first time during 1930 to 1933, 24,326, or 80·7 per cent., had not, so far as is known, returned to prison a second time up to the end of 1935. I think the Committee will agree that that is a satisfactory figure, and we shall all watch with interest to see how the record continues.

The right hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) asked about women prisoners. The decline in the prison population has been most marked among women. The daily average population of women prisoners in 1910–11 was 3,581, and in 1935 it had fallen to 719. On Tuesday last it was only 685. As a result of this, a great reduction in the number of women's establishments has been possible, and there is now only one prison exclusively for women, namely Holloway. The remaining prisons for women are the women's sections of the prisons in Manchester, Durham, Birmingham, Hull, Exeter and Cardiff, and, as the hon. Member for East Hull will probably know, the women's section at Hull will shortly be closed. The one Borstal institution for girls is at Aylesbury.

It has been pointed out that whereas there are certain prisons, like that at Wakefield, in which men have the opportunity of leading a fuller life, owing to the paucity of the numbers of women prisoners there is no similar provision for women.

I cannot off-hand give an explanation on that point, but it is an interesting aspect of the problem and we will look into it. The hon. Member for Westhoughton asked about the figures for Borstal. The figure for Borstal reached its peak in August, 1934, when there were over 2,000 inmates. From that point the figure fell for a short time, but it is now steadily increasing and is well over 1,800. The main reason for that is the increase in the age-group with which Borstal is concerned. We are all aware of the bulge in the juvenile population, and have thought of it mostly in connection with the elementary schools, but the Borstal age-group is slightly different, and we are now feeling the effects of it in regard to Borstal. The Committee will no doubt be aware that the Secretary of State last year made an order raising the maximum age limit for Borstal from 21 to 23. I shall not at this stage of the afternoon go into the reasons why the order was made. Broadly speaking, the reason was that the Home Office had been impressed with the results of Borstal treatment in the higher age groups of boys and also with the results of the segregation of some of the younger recidivists from the adult prisoners, and they had come to the conclusion that Borstal treatment would have a good effect on these age groups. Therefore, the age was raised by this order.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the industrial training scheme and whether it was going on satisfactorily. It is going on satisfactorily. Of course we have introduced an important change recently. It was felt that the work in the work-rooms at Borstal institutions was being done too much from the point of view of production and not sufficiently from the point of view of instruction. A change has been introduced in which much greater emphasis is laid upon the instructional side of the work, and in particular, Saturday mornings are now given over to a theoretical course of instruction in relation to the practical work that the boys have been doing the rest of the week. That is satisfactory, but it is particularly satisfactory to know that the output has not decreased as a result of the change. Although there is less time devoted to it, the boys appear to take more interest in their work during the rest of the week.

The question of their training from the point of view of the work that they are to take up afterwards is very important, and in that an interesting change has been made recently. It is connected with the question of psychological examination, which the hon. Member also raised, though it was not in the broad scheme of what he mentioned. The Institute of Industrial Psychology have been assisting in the work of the Borstal institutions and have worked out a considerable system of examinations of individuals from the point of view of helping to decide for what work those individuals are most fitted. I have here the report of the Institute on this experiment. It makes rather remarkable reading. The hon. Member for Durham City (Mr. Kitson) and others emphasised the fact that many of the people in the prisons and in Borstal institutions are quite intelligent. I have most remarkable examples here of cases examined from the point of view of vocational instruction. A boy was sent from a north-country industrial centre. His mother had died when he was four years old and his father had been in trouble on at least one occasion for cruelty to his children, had deserted him. The boy came to London in an attempt to get office work and on his way he stole. He was caught and put on probation, but again he stole and was caught and he found himself in Borstal. He was examined by the officials of the Society who described him in these terms:

"He was not a sociable individual and he kept himself as strictly as possible to himself. The greater part of his enforced leisure had been taken up with the working out of colculations and the writing of essays. The test results made it clear that he was a boy of outstanding intellectual ability and on an intelligence test considerably above the average of University students. He had an astonishing knowledge of Stock Exchange news and ran an imaginary exchange of his own. Some of,his essays related to his ambition to become Prime Minister. He held strong Liberal Protectionist views. (This be it noted, was in 1930, some time before the formation of the first National Government.)

Did the boy consent to be examined or was he examined compulsorily?

I imagine that he consented to the examination. The conclusion of the experts was that in spite of his ambi- tion to be a Liberal-Protectionist Prime Minister, they thought he would make a very excellent rating surveyor. I would conclude references to these matters by saying that they are very carefully gone into in these days and they have been worked out on a scientific basis. The point really is that the Home Office make a definite practical test with regard to the work that the boys do. We are arranging to train housemasters in the carrying out of these tests, and as the training of housemasters has only recently been begun, it is too early to report on the result, but we hope it will be really satisfactory. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington raised many points and made certain suggestions. I think the Committee was much impressed by what he said about the fourteen days spent by male hard-labour prisoners without a mattress, which is the difference between hard labour and simple imprisonment. That indeed is, I understand, the only substantial remaining difference between the two classes of prisoners. Of course, it does not apply even now to those who are aged or medically unfit. This matter, as my hon. and learned Friend knows, is at present governed by Statute, and therefore, the Prison Commissioners are not free to make a change, even if they would, without the consent of this House. My hon. and learned Friend would not expect me in the circumstances to go in too great detail into it, but I am authorised to say that my right hon. Friend will consider this and other matters to which the hon. and learned Member has referred when the question of legislation arises. Particularly I would extend that assurance to the other important questions he raised with regard to the habitual criminal, the recidivist, from the point of view of giving Courts power to pass a sentence of preventive detention to follow an ordinary sentence of imprisonment. Those are very important matters.

I have caused inquiries to be made into the question which was raised by the hon. Member for Bridgeton regarding the water supply at Dartmoor. My information is that the water supply is perfectly good. Water in a peat district is apt to go brown when it is boiled. It is no different from that which is used by the ordinary householders of the district, and, as at present advised, we cannot see that there is a real grievance with regard to the water. This is not the sort of matter about which the Home Office would wish to be obstructive, and if there were a real defect in the water supply there is no reason why we should not want to do everything to put it right. Possibly the hon. Gentlemen will make a further investigation and will let us know if he finds that there is a further grievance.

The question whether local prisons are fit places for convicts sentenced to three years and upwards was raised by the hon. Member for East Hull. We do not in fact send men sentenced to more than three years to the places he mentioned, but we are ready to consider any individual case in which transfer to a convict prison is thought to be desirable. We do not feel that we can abandon the policy of keeping convicts in local prisons. We have a reason for that, as the hon. Gentleman knows. It has been the idea in prisons that convicts are superior persons, and important people. That idea is, of course, really wrong, and it is wrong to encourage it. I can tell the hon. and learned Member for East Leicester (Mr. Lyons) that we are pleased with the result of the experiment of sending long-term convicts from Maidstone to Dartmoor for continued employment, and that we intend to extend the experiment of outside employment for long term prisoners.

A reference was made in eulogistic terms by the hon. Member for Westhoughton to the Belgian experiment with young offenders. We agree that the experiment is highly organised and systematic, and is on lines upon which there might be some development in this country. It must not go out to the world, however, that we are doing nothing in the matter, because we do a great deal. We report on all cases eligible for Borstal. After sentence, all Borstal boys are collected at Wormwood Scrubs, and are examined as to their antecedents and mental and physical circumstances, before it is decided to which Borstal institution they shall go. The examination is for the purpose of finding out the best institution for particular cases. When a court asks for a special report it is always carried out, or when the medical officer or the governor asks for a special examination. The observation and examination are made the basis of treatment. We think it is better to concentrate on cases calling for special examination and to act on results rather than to collect data.

I would just like to make one or two references to drunkenness. The important factor in the situation is that the figure for the year 1935 was 6,886, whereas the figure in 1910–11 was 54,000 odd.

May I point out that the Commissioners' report for 1935 calls special attention to the fact that it was only on account of cases of drunkenness that there had been an increase in the number of prisoners?

I believe it is the second offences to which attention is specially drawn. Alterations and improvements have been effected in recent years. A large number of prison workshops have been built and equipped, as well as hospitals, chapels, and classrooms reconstructed and modernised. At Manchester, the Commissioners have recently acquired a large area of ground behind the prison, which will enable much needed improvements to be made in that establishment. At Brixton, more land has been acquired, which will enable the reconstruction and modernisation of that prison to be completed. I believe hon. Members will have been pleased to notice the sympathetic remarks made on this subject by my right hon. Friend at the beginning of the Debate.

I do not think that the hon. Member for Bridgeton was altogether fair in taking the line that he could not remember any considerable change or improvement in our prison system under any Home Secretary. It was particularly unjustified, as was indeed pointed out by the hon. Member for East Hull, in view of the Wakefield experiment, and the important extensions of the privileges of the wages system which was announced by my right hon. Friend. Without going further into details, I think the Committee feels that the present administration is generally satisfactory. Of course, it can be amended in detail, and the Home Office would be the last to say that it could not, but I think the Committee will be satisfied to know the sympathetic and progressive attitude which has been shown.

Would the hon. Gentleman say something about the silence rule?

Not having had the personal experience of His Majesty's prisons that the hon. Gentleman has had, I prefer to be allowed to look into that matter. I will communicate with him.

Would he consider also the provision of separate halls for the older men?

I asked for certain information. May I take it that it will be sent to me?

I cannot give any undertaking with regard to statistics, but I assure the hon. Member that I will certainly communicate further with him on the matter.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by £100

I move this reduction not in any spirit of opposition to the Vote, but merely to enable the right hon. Gentleman or the Under-Secretary to make a statement in connection with these approved schools. The matter was raised when the Estimate was before the House on 3rd March, and there was some criticism because of what was considered to be the incompleteness of the statement of the Under-Secretary. In saying that I am not making any com- plaint, for the way in which the Vote reached the House at that time made it very difficult for the hon. Gentleman to make a considered statement. Consequently, we have called for this Vote again, and we hope that any misapprehensions which may exist in the minds of hon. Members will be dispersed by a statement later in the afternoon.

I have however, one complaint to make, and I hope that it will be remedied. There appears to be no information available to Members, from the Home Office or from any authoritative body associated with the Government, in connection with approved schools. Naturally, when I was told that this matter was to come before the House, I turned to my documents thinking that I should find among them the necessary information with regard to approved schools and to the operation of the Children and Young Persons Act. No collected data on the subject appear, however, to be in existence. I went into the Library, where three librarians search the indexes for me, but, although there were such headings as "Approved Schools, Children's Branch," and so forth, no collected information appears to have been made available to Members. This is a gap which I hope will be filled at the earliest opportunity. Up to, I think, the year 1928, the Children's Branch issued reports which enabled Members to obtain some clear idea of the progress of the administration on these matters, but those reports are no longer issued. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take immediate steps to ensure that some report upon this great child problem, this great human issue which is attracting the interest and support of many of our best citizens, will be issued. On 30th September, 1936, there were 7,927 children in these schools, whereas the daily average prison population was 11,306. A very large number of young offenders are being drafted into these schools, but, as far as I know, no considered statement is published and no data are collected for the information of Members to enable them to discuss these problems in a more enlightened manner.

Obviously, these schools are linked up with juvenile crime, which, unhappily, has been showing a large and persistent increase, certainly since 1930. In the Debate on 3rd March, the view was ex- pressed that many children were being drafted by magistrates into these schools without proper care and thought. The view was expressed, particularly by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Max-ton), that these children would be much better in their own homes than in these schools. I do not make that assertion, because I have not the requisite knowledge to do so, but I know that many of us have received complaints from parents who believe that grave injustice has been done by magistrates in this concern, and I have no doubt that many questions have reached the Home Office through Members of the House. I think it would be well that, if these fears which have been expressed by hon. Members are groundless, they should be dispersed, because, if they are widely circulated when there is no ground for them, that must of itself be inimical to the best interests of the scheme and the treatment of juvenile offenders. In the course of my experience at the Home Office I met large numbers of people who for some reason or other desired their names and activities to be associated with juvenile courts and with matters affecting young offenders, but in many cases I regarded them as busybodies who had no real contribution to make. I do not say that that was so in all cases; I could cite, happily, many cases in which they were not only active but active in a useful sense.

Some time ago I put a question to the Home Secretary on this matter and was told that in 1935 the number of persons found guilty of indictable offences was 69,849; that, of these, 25,543 were under the age of 17; and that, of the offenders under the age of 17, nine per cent. were sent to Home Office schools, 51 per cent. were placed under the supervision of the probation officer, eight per cent. were bound over without an order for supervision, and in 24 of the cases the prosecution was dismissed. The figures for 1936 are not available, but I should say that there has been an increase in the number of such offenders, and I have no doubt that a larger percentage have been sent to these approved schools.

In recent years we have displayed a more intelligent approach to the whole problem of juvenile offenders and juvenile crime. Juvenile courts are an excellent thing in themselves, though I should like to have seen a judge ap- pointed for children's affairs. Having got the right man, I think he would have codified the system and method, and would have been of great utility to our lay magistrates who have to administer the law in those courts. The probation system is another contribution, but I do not think it is used as widely as it might be. Magistrates are frequently tempted to send children to prison or to these schools when, I think, a better process would be served if they were dealt with under the probation system.

Then we have the approved schools, which follow on the reformatory and industrial schools. We shall be glad to learn that these schools have brought a new attitude of mind and that those responsible are approaching the problem in a different spirit from that which existed in the days when I went to school. I think a full statement from the Under-Secretary would not only encourage those interested in the promotion of this class of treatment, but would also remove many doubts that may be in the minds of Members and of the public at large. I feel sometimes that greater care might be taken in connection with the selection of magistrates to preside over children's courts and generally those who assist. I should like to know whether the Home Office administrators are satisfied with the progress up to date. What further developments do they contemplate and what experiment have they in mind? We have a rising tide of juvenile crime, and the Home Office must have learned something from the operation of the Act and from their experience in the juvenile courts and we should like to know whether they are satisfied with the progress that has been made and whether they contemplate making any contribution to the solution of this very difficult problem.

Some say that this increase in juvenile crime is due to the lessening of parental control. That is an easy criticism. I find in all the literature of the novelists of the last century criticism of the way in which parents manage their children, and I cannot think that that in itself is a justifiable contribution to the problem. Some hold the view that the cinema has had a bad effect on the minds of young children. I do not think it has been a contributory factor to any great extent: I think, however, that unemployment and the long period of depression through which we had been passing has had its effect upon the morale and the minds of our young people. I do not think it is wise that we should continue to tolerate a social system which denies the right to useful employment to young children. I agree with Mr. Edward Cadogan, who says in his book that it creates a tendency in the minds of these young people to feel in these conditions that they are under no obligation to regard the law. I do not condone it at all, but I feel that it is a contributory factor to the increase in juvenile crime. Mr. Cadogan also points out that there has been a large increase in amenities during the last 25 years—the cinema, swimming pools, lawn tennis and so forth—and these young people, perhaps mixing with others more fortunate from a financial point of view, are not able to take advantage of these things and they turn, perhaps, to stealing. He does not think that there is any criminal intent, but that is the effect of unemployment and the increase in amenities. It is a great temptation, and I agree that harshness is not in itself the best remedy. I am happy to think that encouragement and advice are more and more finding expression in juvenile courts and elsewhere than used to be the case.

We have some 87 approved schools—that is in 1935–36. I have not the figure for 1936–37. From 1930 right down to 1936 there has been a consistent increase in the number of children ordered by the court to go to these schools. In 1930 the figure was 6,119, and in 1936 it was. 7,927. I do not feel that I can make any reflection on the administration of the juvenile courts in sending these children. to approved schools because, whatever may be the right hon. Gentleman's knowledge, it is not at my command, but I think the House and the country are seized of the importance of this rise in juvenile offenders and they would like to feel satisfied that we are making a proper and adequate contribution to its solution.

I have one or two further observations to make, and I should like to ask some questions about the staff. A report was made on the conditions of service of the: staff of the approved schools, and, I understand that the recommendations have been generally adopted. That is all to the good, because I believe that those recommendations were of a most useful and excellent character. I should like to know what qualifications are possessed by the staff, who appoints the headmaster and staff and to what extent the Home Office have supervision and control? I know that this is linked up with the finance of the local authorities, that half the expenditure comes from the Exchequer and half from the local authorities. I should also like to know what interest they have in the administration of these approved schools? Have all the education authorities agreed to make themselves "fit persons" under the Children Act? I think that the Home Secretary knows to what I am referring when I use the words "fit persons." Have the education authorities realised that they are primarily responsible for dealing with children in need of care and protection as defined by Section 61, and are the approved schools regarded as an integral part of our education system?

There is the question of boarding out and making provision for foster aunts and uncles or something of that kind, and I should like to know to what extent the Home Office are moving in this direction. What has been the experience and are they satisfied with the adoption of that principle? Is the system making a useful contribution to the problem which I have raised this afternoon. I have endeavoured to put clearly and precisely, without making a long speech, the points which seem to me to be of importance and some of which found expression by hon. Members in a previous debate. I hope that the result will be a statement from the right hon. Gentleman or his colleague which will clear the atmosphere and be an encouragement to those who are administering juvenile courts, and taking an active interest in young offenders and approved schools, and will generally remove any feeling of doubt and suspicion that may lurk in the minds of the general public.

I am obliged to the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Short) for the tone and the matter of his speech. He has a great advantage over me to-day, as he knows so much more about these questions than I do. At the same time, let Me tell him that my public life seems to have gone a curious circle. I began it in London as chairman of what was then called the Special Schools Committee of the London County Council, which dealt with what were then called industrial schools and reformatories, and I think that a little of my old interest has been rekindled in the course of the debate to-day.

Let me assure the hon. Gentleman at once that in future there will be a regular report upon these schools. The House is entitled to have a report of that kind and the schools also, and I think that when hon. Members come to read it, they will find that the schools, or at any rate a very great part of the schools, have a very fine record, and in justice to them that record ought to be more widely known. The Committee know that there are two classes of children who go to these schools—the children who have committed some kind of offence, and the children who are sent there because they need protection and because the conditions of their homes are so bad as to be a danger to their future.

There are a number of these schools over the country, and the hon. Member is quite correct in saying that the number of children sent to them has tended to increase in recent years. I am told that it is difficult exactly to define the reasons for that increase. Perhaps it is that the existence of juvenile courts and the greater interest taken in the conditions of these children have led to that increase. Perhaps it is, for some reason or other, that there have been greater temptations to children to commit some of these offences. It is interesting in that connection to note a paragraph in the latest Report of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in which he draws attention to the curious fact that the age of 13 seems to be a very dangerous age for children, and that a very large number of these offences are committed by children of 13. But whatever may be the reason, the number has tended to increase, and the increase in the numbers has brought with it a new problem.

The hon. Member asked me whether the Home Office were satisfied with the present position. In one respect we are not satisfied with the present position. We have not sufficient accommodation at present for the increasing numbers, and the result of this deficiency of accommodation means that from time to time chil- dren have to be sent to remand homes until there are places for them in the approved schools, and that they have often to be kept in remand homes much longer than we should desire. I would venture to take the opportunity of this Debate to appeal to the great local authorities to help us to increase the available accommodation. Several of them have been adding to the number of schools, but we still want more schools, and I hope that they will co-operate with us and try to avoid the possibility of what now happens of having to keep children in remand homes for prolonged periods. As far as the records of these schools go, they appear to me to be so remarkable as to be well worth allusion by the Home Secretary in the course of this Debate.

Let me give the Committee a few facts which show that, as far as we can judge, the schools as a whole are turning out a very good type of boy and girl, and that the boys and girls are making good in after life. The latest figures are based on an analysis of subsequent conduct over a period of three years of the boys and girls released during the years 1928–29–30. Arrangements have been made with the managers of the schools to forward information showing how the boys and girls were three years after they had left school. The answers show that the managers were still in touch with 95 per cent. of the former pupils. The fact that the percentage is so high, when it is remembered that the boys and girls are distributed all over the country and that some are in the Army or abroad, is good evidence of the efficiency of the after-care arrangements.

As regards the 95 per cent., the statistics for the schools for the older boys show that 83.5 per cent. out of 1,605 can be regarded as satisfactory young citizens—a good result in view of the unemployment at that time. The school results for the older girls show that 76 per cent. out of a total of 127, were satisfactory. It must be remembered that this percentage is based on a small total number and that the older girls are a most difficult class to deal with. The results of the schools for the younger boys average 83.2 per cent. of successes out of a total of 2,009. The results of the schools for the younger girls show an average of successes of 92 per cent. out of a total of 394 cases.

When I come to further details I find that not less than 40,000 old boys from these schools are known to have served in His Majesty's Forces. Reckoned on an infantry basis, that is equivalent to four Divisions, or one Army Corps. I find, further, that Farm Schools have been successful in winning the County Clean Milk Championship against all comers. The handicraft work of the boys is seen at great advantage at the biennial exhibition organised by the Turners' Company at the Guildhall, where the pupils carry off many prizes. The Southern schools have been allowed to hold their annual boxing competition under the auspices of the Army Boxing Association, at Chelsea Barracks, and have aroused very favourable comment from the commanding officers who have given away the prizes.

Perhaps I must not be too explicit about the individual records of particular boys, as it may be they would not wish me too closely to identify them with their past; but I think I can say without compromising anybody that at the present time there are several of these boys playing first-class cricket, one or two have been distinguished Members of this House and one of the old boys has made so good and has such a feeling of gratitude for his past training that: he has been giving no less than £100 a year to his old school for various prizes and other activities in connection with the school. These facts seem to show that on the whole the record of these schools is good. We want more of them, and we shall be prepared to make experiments with them. In line with the experiment in which we are at present engaged in connection with the classifying of the children, we are dealing, for instance, with children who want only a short period of training, in whose case there is no need for them to be taken from their homes for long periods of time, and also with finding foster parents for children through local authorities. We are alive to the need of these experiments and I hope that the re-issue of the report, will bring the facts before the notice of the Committee, and that they will continue to take an interest in these schools. Here and now I invite hon. Members on all sides of the Committee, if they have an opportunity, to visit these schools and see for themselves whether the facts I have put before them to-day are not well justified by the record of the schools.

I also deplore the fact that so important a debate as this, affecting as it does so many unfortunate children, should be delayed to the last half hour on a Friday afternoon. I also deplore that so little information is to be obtained about these schools. I readily agree that the Act has only been in force for a few years, but there should have been sufficient information forthcoming to the Home Office to issue something for the benefit of hon. Members. On 3rd March, 1937, the Under-Secretary said:

"I will go thoroughly into the points which have been raised, and will be prepared to make a detailed statement on the whole subject at a later opportunity."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March, 1937, Col. 434, Vol. 321.]

Unfortunately, neither the Under-Secretary nor the Secretary of State himself could give a detailed statement on the whole subject at this late hour of the day. These approved schools have changed their name. They used to be called reformatory and industrial schools; now they are called appproved schools. Approved by whom? I suppose it is the Home Secretary. But the responsibility does not end with the Home Secretary. The ultimate responsibility is on hon. Members, and it is not a small responsibility when you consider the number of schools, the number of pupils and the annual cost. The figures which have been produced as to the number of schools and pupils and the cost proves the question to be a very important one. The flotsam and jetsam of child-life gathered together in these schools may seem a small thing to some people when compared with a large number of ordinary children undergoing education, but you must remember that normal children have their homes and the goodwill of their parents, while these poor unfortunates have to be sent away and trained to make them better citizens.

We who are the custodians of the welfare of these unfortunate children rejoice to know that the community is taking a greater interest in child life than ever before. We can find many tragedies in the Blue Books of the past of the exploitation of children. We can read in Dickens harrowing accounts of child life 100 years ago. We have got a long way from that stage now, and we rejoice that the country and the Government are taking a lively interest in this unfortunate class of boys and girls. I have been looking at a report issued by the Committee on Approved Schools in January, 1936, and I find in that report that some of these schools are voluntary and that others are partially voluntary. The report says that the teachers in some of those schools before 1920 were compelled to over-work the boys and girls, and later on it says that the lack of funds resulted in standards all round being low and staffs being poorly qualified and very much underpaid. I hope that when the next report comes out, we shall find that some improvement has taken place, and that the boys and girls who are sent away from their homes are not overworked and that the teachers employed are properly qualified and paid decent remuneration.

My experience as a teacher is that the more difficult a class of pupils is, the better qualified should be the teacher. In those schools many of the classes are very difficult ones, and if the teachers are unqualified, we do not do our duty by those bairns. It is not that the bairns have an extra dose of original sin; it is very largely due to hereditary environment. They are taken into a new environment, and that environment ought to help to eradicate some of the failings which have been handed on to them by their forefathers. The environment does not consist only of the school building and playing fields, but includes the teachers and the curriculum. I hope that the 1933 Act will deal more humanely with these boys and girls than they were dealt with in the past. Much has been done, but are we sure that all has been done? Teachers' emoluments have been improved and the schools have been wisely graded, but I want to know whether there is increasing efficiency all round and not low standards. As regards teachers, is there a good measure of co-operation between all members of the teaching staff? I have been rather disturbed to read in the report to which I have referred, the following sentences with regard to the dismissal of teachers:

"Dismissals of a member of the staff rests with the Managers, but, as a matter of practice, the Head of a school may, in the case of the serious misconduct of any member of the staff, at once suspend him or her and report this to the Managers. It has been alleged that in some instances this power of dismissal has been used in an arbitrary manner, and Officers who have given satisfactory service in a responsible position have been dismissed merely on the report of a headmaster, and have been given no opportunity of stating their side of the case before the managers."

Such arbitrary action as that is un-English, and the heads ought to be recommended to give up such dictatorial methods. As to the children, I find a still more disturbing paragraph on page 11 of the report, which reads:

"We have been informed that there is considerable divergence of action in regard to any complaint by or on behalf of the children against a member of the staff."

Further on, the report states:

"We have, however, evidence that Ion occasions serious charges made by the children against a member of the staff have been dismissed after insufficient investigation, on such grounds as that the evidence of these boys and girls is unreliable."

The report goes on to say:

"Quite apart from the question of securing just treatment for these children, who are more or less deprived of adequate support from their parents, it is definitely in the interest of the Officer concerned that a thorough inquiry should be held into any substantial complaint made against him or her, and a full report made to the Home Office."

I wonder how many of those reports have been received at the Home Office. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will tell us when he replies. I also wish to know whether it is possible to have the reports of the inspectors upon these schools. With regard to the question of after-care, we have had from the right hon. Gentleman certain figures showing that some of these boys have gone into the Army, Navy or Air Force, while others have gone abroad. I understand that under the Act it is possible to send these boys or girls away without the consent of the parents. It all depends upon the reliability of the parents. May I ask how many boys have been sent into the services and how many boys and girls have emigrated without their parents being consulted in the matter? I know it is early yet to expect a full report, but I hope that what has been said to-day will induce the right hon. Gentleman to consider presenting a real report at an early date. I would also like to know whether during the last year there have been any cases of whipping in these approved schools; whether the Home Secretary is satisfied that complaints made by or on behalf of children against members of the staff are thoroughly investigated and reported on, and, lastly, whether there are any cases of teachers having been dismissed without a thorough inquiry? I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that we are to have a report on this important question, and I hope that it will be published at an early date.

Anyone who has had experience of these schools will be able to assure the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken that the conditions now are considerably better than those to which he referred and which existed in 1920. May I congratulate my right hon. Friend, not merely on attaining the office of Home Secretary but on showing the sympathetic attitude on this question which he has shown this afternoon? I am sure that anyone who has ever visited these schools must have been interested to hear my right hon. Friend's remark that he had had previous experience of them when he was a member of a committee of the London County Council. As I say, he will find when he visits these schools now as Home Secretary that they have improved greatly since the days when he was on the London County Council. My right hon. Friend said that the approved schools catered for two classes of children—those who had been in trouble and those who needed protection. I presume that the children who need protection are not sent to the same schools as those who have been in trouble, but I would like an assurance on that matter.

We were all interested to hear of the wonderful records in after life of the boys and girls who have been pupils of approved schools and I am sure it has, been gratifying to hon. Members to hear that the old boys on the whole have a better record than the old girls. We are sorry however that some of the lady Members of the House are not present so that they might hear this testimony which we are paying to ourselves. I only wish, indeed, that more hon. Members could have been in their places to hear the important statement by the Home Secretary, but I understand that several Members of Parliament to-day are attending proceedings at some school which, I believe, is situated in the Windsor division of Berkshire. I do not know whether it is an approved school or hot, though I should think it is a school which is probably more approved by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade than by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, the Under-Secretary, or myself.

I can perhaps give a little illustration, from some of my own experience, of meeting the boys of one of these approved schools, which I know fairly well. Some years ago there was going to be a charity fête in my division, and it was thought that it would be rather an attraction if various villages made replicas of old Tudor houses. They would be made on a framework and painted on canvas. I asked the headmaster of an approved school whether his boys would like to make one of these houses, which the other villagers could copy. They came to my house, worked very hard, and made a very excellent job of it. Naturally, one asked the boys in to tea afterwards, and they were very delightful boys, but I was a bit shocked when I received a letter from that headmaster some time afterwards thanking me and saying how grateful the boys were at having been asked to tea—nobody would think anything of that—because, he said, they felt they were being looked upon as ordinary members of the community. It had never struck me before that they would be looked upon as anything else. They had done their punishment and were being trained apart for civil life, but I think that shows the sort of work that we want to do to rehabilitate them and make them feel that they will not become criminals.

Reference was made earlier this afternoon, I think by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies), to one of the numerous books which have recently appeared, written by people who have had unfortunate experiences. I remember one written by some man who had been a burglar, and he said in that book that, owing to an unfortunate home environment, once he went wrong as a child he naturally began to associate with other unfortunate children, and he never had a chance of getting back. I think these schools give a great opportunity to boys and girls to get back and start as ordinary citizens, but if these schools are to do the right work, they ant every assistance which they can get from public opinion, and, what is more, it is necessary that we should use every endeavour to get these schools the best possible staffs. It is obviously a much harder and more difficult task to be a headmaster of one of these schools than of an ordinary school. You have not only to maintain discipline, but you have also to gain the confidence of your pupils and to try to make them see that the whole world is not against them but will give them a helping hand.

That is why it is so necessary that we should get the best possible staffs, and I would like the Under-Secretary, when he replies, to give us, if he can, a few more details, in answer to the last speaker, in regard to how the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on the Remuneration of Services in Approved Schools is being carried out. It is pointed out in this report that headmasters must have a deputy, an assistant headmaster in certain cases, or a principal who can carry on when they are away or taking their holidays, and it is suggested in the report that, in regard to the intermediate schools and the older ones, there should be an assistant headmaster in practically every case. I would like to ask the Under-Secretary of State whether that is being carried out.

It is also pointed out in this report that we are unlikely to be able to find in future men sufficiently qualified for this technical work from outside the service. We have to take men from inside the service, from those who have been attached to approved schools. It is, therefore, necessary that special training should be given to the men who are likely to become headmasters. It is suggested that assistant headmasters should undergo special training and have a special course. I should like to ask whether these courses are being set up so that we can get the type of men we want to see at the head of these schools. I am making no criticism of the present headmasters. The men I have met are doing wonderful work, and we are fortunate that the work has attracted such a fine type, but nobody can say that they are overpaid and that their hours are too short. It is suggested in the report that their remuneration should be increased and that their hours should be reduced. I should like the Under-Secretary to tell us how far, this is being carried out.

The hon. Member who has just spoken made an important reference to the question of the appointment and dismissal of the staff. It is wrong that the headmaster should be able to dismiss, as I believe he can in some cases, an assistant without the assistant being able to put his case before the managers; I am not sure that he ought not to have the right to appeal to the Home Secretary. There ought to be some system by which the staff can feel more secure. The other point mentioned by the hon. Gentleman was as to complaints by children. As the hon. Member who has had experience in dealing with children knows, this is a difficult question. Children, especially those who have been in trouble, might make frivolous complaints. They might get evidence which is not very sound which might possibly lead to injustice being done to the headmaster and his staff. We have to guard against that. On the other hand, there is always the danger that the evidence of children might be insufficiently considered and bullying and injustice might be done to them. I do not know what is the best method of getting over these difficulties. Perhaps the Under-Secretary will tell us whether the Home Office have gone into this difficult problem.

I am sure that many Members will gladly accept the invitation of the Home Secretary to visit these schools. I hope they will, because it is necessary for the schools to have public opinion with them. If the approved schools can be visited by Members of the county councils, rural district councils and urban district councils and important people in the locality, showing that they take an interest in them, it has an enormous effect. Pupils begin to feel that somebody is looking after them apart from those who are paid to do it and the whole tone of the school is raised. My experience of these schools is that the education and the teaching given in them is second to none. In fact, it has been said that in some cases it is easier for a boy who has been a little naughty and perhaps shown some initiative to get a job from these schools than if he had acted on the right lines. We do not want to encourage too much initiative in that sense, but very often boys who have done something out of mischievousness rather than real evil who are at these schools do turn into useful citizens, and we thank the Home Secretary for the encouraging words which he has spoken.

I trust the Committee will forgive me for intervening again. My only excuse is that only some six months ago the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor did me the honour of asking me to investigate the affairs of an approved school. That was naturally a confidential matter to which I cannot refer, but in the course of a careful investigation I came to certain conclusions which may be of some assistance to the Committee. The first point that struck me was the real excellence of the surroundings under which those boys were working and living. They had playing fields which make the playing fields of Eton and other academical establishments—I will not mention my own school—look mere hovels. Every possible thing was being done for boys who—one cannot get away from the fact—were there because they were already youthful criminals. As I left the thought passed through my mind, "With all these facilities given for real development, how is it that those who administer justice in other places are certain to find in the next confidential document which comes before them 'This is an ex-approved school case.'"

What I am really concerned about is whether what is going on in these approved schools from the educational point of view is the very best we can do. Obviously they exist for education and for training rather than for punitive purposes. I wonder whether the Minister realises that the children are there from the age of 15 to 19, and that from the moment a boy enters an approved school at the age of 15 he is being handicapped in the labour market against boys who leave school at the age of 14 or 15 and begin their training in their life's occupation. In my own constituency, and I dare say it is the same in the constituencies of hon. Members opposite, there is at the moment no real juvenile unemployment problem. The problem arises far more seriously for boys when they reach 17 or 18. As I have said, the ordinary boy when he leaves school goes straight on to the labour market and begins his training as a plumber or an engineer or in some other trade.

What happens to the boy in the approved school? He leads an excellent healthy life so that he comes out a really strong and healthy citizen, but in 9 cases out of 10 he is given simply an agricultural training. In the school to which I am referring, although 99 per cent. of the boys came from industrial areas, the whole basis of the training was agricultural, and I am told it is the same in other schools. What is the good of training a boy who is not going to live in the country to milk cows and to recognise a turnip from a potato and then turn him loose into the labour market at the age of 17, under the clemency of the Home Office, to compete with boys who already have a trade at their finger-tips? I believe that a good deal of the recidivist juvenile crime is due to the wrong training which is being given, because when the boy finds that he cannot compete in the labour market against those who have already received their preliminary training he loses heart and relapses into crime.

I suggest that the Committees who manage these approved schools and manage them with great success, should consider whether it is not possible to fit the boys for their industrial lives by training.them in the elements of engineering, or m turning or joinery and carpentry, so that when they have completed their period at the school they can go out ready to compete with their fellows. I believe such a course would go far to solve the problem of recidivism among juveniles. Can any one imagine a more difficult task than that which the staffs of these schools have to undertake. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. Sexton) with his vast experience as a schoolmaster, would like, with a staff of perhaps two or at the outside three certificated teachers, supported by others who are not certificated at all but are most excellent men, to control a crowd of 150 to 300 boys, every one of whom is there because he is already of criminal tendencies? The hon. Member would know, from the very nature of the case, that for a serious moral offence he has no power of expulsion at all. He can have no monitorial system, because the whole essence of that system is that a boy becomes a monitor because of good character. There is no more difficult task in the world of schoolmasters.

With great respect I would point out an extraordinary anomaly in the punishments, corporal and deprivation of privileges. In the inquiry to which I have referred I was amazed to find that what in a public school is regarded as a serious offence is a normal every-day practice in these institutions, namely smoking. It is regarded as part of the normal every-day life of these boys of 15 to 19. That is a minor matter. They are punished by being deprived of smoking. But what happens in very serous cases? Earlier to-day we were discussing Borstal. Borstal can only be inflicted by courts which can try indictable offences, except under the Children Act. Under the Children Act the managers can take the child, if he has run away and has been caught, to where? Not to the local quarter sessions, presided over by a qualified lawyer, not to the assizes, where he will be dealt with by a judge of the King's Bench, but down to the local bench, who can say "You naughty boy; you shall go to Borstal for two years." That is an amazing position. How it ever got into the Children Act that a local bench should have the power of sending to Borstal passes my comprehension.

I suggest that the Home Office themselves ought to have the power to send really wicked lads to Borstal, where a stronger discipline can be inflicted than in the approved schools. The country owes a very gfeat deal to these approved schools. It is only a very small percentage of the boys who go wrong. I say this in no critical spirit, but I cannot avoid thinking that if there was just a little more practical sense and a little less of the Institute of psychology, it would be better. I do not think there was anything very bad in the education and discipline we had in the public schools and the board schools of the country forty years ago. If we run approved schools on practical rather than theoretical lines, there is a great future for them. I say God-speed to those who are doing this work.

We have to be careful in this discussion not to make hasty generalisations from particular instances. The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just spoken was, perhaps, a little unfortunate in the school to which he was recently sent to conduct an investigation, because in some of the other schools instanced by the Home Secretary the widest possible forms of practical and technical education are available. The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned prizes. I believe they are almost consistently won by the scholars in one of those schools, so consistently that most other schools think: "We may get a second, but we know where the first will go." The same holds goods of the problem as a whole. One must recollect that when the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, was passed, it applied to approximately one-third of the population of the country. At that time, the population over the age of 17 had reached its maximum in the history of the country. From present indications it is not likely to approximate during the next few years to anything like that figure.

Magistrates throughout the country have, I believe rightly, regarded this as an opportunity to see what could be done by wise experiment with the most difficult and, if successfully solved, fruitful problem which confronts them. I do not think there is any evidence of an excessive wave of what my hon. Friend called juvenile crime. The Acts uses the term "juvenile delinquency," and I understand that magistrates are desired to use it. In spite of the smile of the hon. and learned Gentleman, that term conveys something different in the eyes of laymen from the term "juvenile crime." We have to look at the matter of crime and delinquency through the eyes of the child rather than through the eyes of the adult. When taking apples, the ordinary English boy does not think he is stealing, but taking strawberries is theft. The only crime about taking apples is in being found out. I notice that the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) has just gone out; I wanted to say that every boy seems to be a Communist, with regard to apples. The magistrate who would regard the taking of apples as the same thing in the mind of a child as the taking of strawberries would prove himself unfitted for his post.

I hope serious efforts will be made in the newer schools which are being established to find out the causes which led some of the children to take what adults are apt to regard as the wrong step. I am sure that careful individual analysis of the child's attitude towards his own wrong-doing would be very valuable to those who have to sit in juvenile courts and elsewhere and deal with such boys. I do not think the cinema has very much to do with the present juvenile delinquency. About 45 years ago the blame was put upon the "Penny Blood." The "Penny Blood" was supposed to be the cause of juvenile wrong-doing and it was believed that if that type of publication were suppressed all the trouble would disappear. The cinema now appears to have taken its place. That belief resembles the attitude of the fond mother who said to the nurse: "What is Johnny doing? Whatever it is, tell him not to!" Because a child apparently likes the cinema, there is no need to think that an unnecessarily large proportion of juvenile crime is due to it.

I would like, in conclusion, to express my thanks to the Home Office for the very helpful circular which they have issued to local authorities in the neigh-bourhood of London with regard to the new Banstead Hall approved school, which is one of the short-term schools. I had hoped to have a longer time in which to deal with the wording of that circular, but I am sure that, if the local education authorities and magistrates in the area will try to use that school in the spirit suggested in the circular, it will prove to be a very helpful experiment along the lines that the Home Secretary has been asking for this afternoon. After all, at 15 or 16, three years seems a long time, and, if you can give to the child some sort of hope, if he or she can make good, and give substantial evidence of having made good, in the early months of the sentence, I am sure it will do a great deal towards removing these children as soon as possible from an atmosphere which may quite possibly, through companionship, lead them further astray.

I should like to reply as shortly as possible to some of the points which have been raised. I think it is quite clear that the Commttee as a whole are strongly in favour of dealing with young offenders by this method, though there is a feeling in the minds of certain hon. Members, which was expressed by the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Short), that it is possible that the courts are making too frequent use of the remedy of the approved school, and the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has just pointed out the desirability, in certain cases, of using other methods, or, indeed, of adopting the experiment, mentioned briefly by the Home Secretary, of a shorter period in the approved school.

Reference has been made to the probation system. At the Home Office we fully recognise the great value of the probation system, and we feel that there can be further development in the "fit person," scheme for dealing with delinquent children. With regard to the fear that has been expressed, that the Courts are making too frequent use of their power to send children to approved schools, we certainly have no reason to think that that is the case. Under the rules governing the procedure, parents can make their views known to the Court, and, in particular, the Court is required, unless it thinks it undesirable to do so, to inform the parent or guardian, if present, of the manner in which it proposes to deal with the case, and to allow the parent or guardian to make representations. Naturally, parents are reluctant to believe that they are not looking after their own children properly, although there are undoubtedly cases, as all those of us who have investigated the circumstances are aware, in which certain children are better away from the particular parents in question. The Courts are particularly enjoined to have regard to the welfare of the children themselves; they have means of obtaining very full information from the local education authority and the probation officer; and the Home Office has no ground for thinking that children are being taken away from their homes and sent to approved schools unless the circumstances really necessitate it.

The hon. Member for Doncaster has suggested that there has been an increase in the number of juvenile offenders, and that a larger proportion are being sent to approved schools. This is a very crucial point. It if were the case that a larger percentage of children who had been proved to be offenders were being sent to approved schools, I think the House would require an explanation of the reasons—for example, whether it was decided that there was greater advantage from this method as compared with other methods, or something of that kind. But as a matter of fact that is not the case at all, and I think the House will be interested to have the figures. It we go back to 1928, we find that in that year the percentage of children found guilty in the juvenile courts who were sent to approved schools was 9·75. In 1929 it was 8·89; in 1930, 9·84; in 1931, 9·76; in 1932, 9·57; in 1933, 9·59; in 1934, 10.00; and in 1935, 9·21. That is less than the figure for 1928. I think the Committee will broadly agree that there is no evidence that the courts are making increased use of this method of dealing with juveniles.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to what he called the increasing wave of juvenile crime, but I was very glad that the hon. Member who spoke last threw doubt upon that conclusion from his own practical experience. We feel at the Home Office that there is a great deal of loose and unjustified talk about a wave of juvenile crime. There are many reasons why one might take this view. First of all, we are experiencing at the moment a very considerable rise in the juvenile population. It is the "bulge" that we referred to in our discussion on the previous vote. We should naturally expect more offences by boys if there were, say, four boys for every three that there were before. One of the most important points is that there is undoubtedly less reluctance among the authorities to bring cases of juvenile delinquency before the courts, because of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933. They feel that the welfare of the child itself is going to be more considered than it has ever been before when children come before the court, and they have not, therefore, the same reluctance to bring them before the court. They have not the same incentive to deal with it by a mere cuff on the head and tell the child not to be silly in future. They feel in an increasing number of cases that it is really going to help the child.

I ought perhaps to refer at this point to the argument raised by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Thornbury (Captain Gunston), as to whether care and protection cases and actual juvenile delinquents are dealt with in separate classes. They are not dealt with in separate classes, which may surprise my hon. and gallant Friend, but the reason is one which I believe, will be most appreciated by those who are most closely connected with this work. It partially springs from the point made by the hon. Member who spoke last, that the delinquency in many cases is not in itself serious, but it may be felt that it is likely to be repeated and may lead to more serious crimes in the future. But those who have most experience of the work seem to take the view that the borderline between care and protection cases and actual delinquents is a very misty borderline indeed. After the Iast Debate, in which the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) said he thought these schools were something in the nature of prisons and not little Etons and Harrows, I made a special point of visiting some of them and I was more than ever impressed by the work that is being done. There is no question whatever of their being prisons in the ordinary sense, and in fact there are better grounds for comparing them with the public schools. On the last occasion when a selection had to be made of a master in an approved school, we had an application from a former Housemaster at Harrow and another from a master at Marlborough. This illustration may serve to give the Committee some idea of the nature of the training and instruction that is provided by our schools.