Crooks would like to go much further. Until Poor Law children are taken entirely away from the control of Guardians he will never be satisfied. Why should the authority that looks after workhouses for the old and infirm be entrusted with the task of training the young? The two duties lie as far apart as East from West. He would place these children wholly under the education authority.
No matter where, he is always ready to put in a word for Poor Law children on the least opportunity. It was news to his colleagues on the London County Council when, in the course of a debate in the summer of 1894, he told of his own experience in a Poor Law school. He seems to have made a deep impression by his speech on that occasion, judging by the following comment made shortly afterwards by the Municipal Journal;—
Those who heard Mr. Crooks's speech in the Council Chamber, when the subject of the training of Poor Law children came up on a side issue, will not readily forget it. One of the daily papers, in its admiration the next day, declared it to be the best speech heard at the Council. Be that as it may, the speech, coming spontaneously with the pent-up indignation of a soul that had suffered sorely from a pernicious system, was a marvellous one, producing a marvellous effect. Councillors in the front benches turned round and visitors in the gallery stretched forward to catch a glimpse of the short dark figure on the Labour bench pleading so powerfully for the children of the poor.
Nor had he been in the House of Commons long before his voice was heard there on behalf of workhouse children. Speaking in a debate in 1903 on the various methods of dealing with these children, he said:—
At one time there was no stronger advocate of boarding-out than myself. It is an ideal system in theory, but its success by practical application has yet to be proved. Many requests are made by country people to be allowed to adopt children on charitable grounds, but when inquiries come to be made into the incomes of these people the Guardians generally find it is hoped to make a profit out of the children. I have visited a village where a widow boarded four children—two more than the law allows. For these children she was paid sixteen shillings a week. She lived in a district where the labourer's wages were only eleven shillings.
In regard to another case I personally investigated, I asked how the boy was getting on.
"Oh, all right; but he is growing so big and eats such a lot that I wish you would take him away and send me a smaller boy."
The boarded-out children, so far from losing the pauper taint, are more frequently known by the name of the Union from which they come than by their own names. In fact, in some villages, I found "boarding-out" a staple industry. Boarding-out is all right in good homes; the difficulty is to find good homes.
Not long after he made this speech, there was an outcry in a section of the Press over "an amazing example of extravagance" at Poplar. It appeared in the form of a letter from a correspondent. The correspondent—who turned out to be a member of a firm of contractors—waxed virtuously indignant over the Guardians' tenders because they included, he alleged, supplies of luxuries for paupers. The so-called luxuries for the most part proved to be medical comforts ordered by the doctor for the ailing. Among the other items was 1 cwt. of pat-a-cake biscuits, and these were singled out specially as a specimen of how the workhouse inmates were pampered.
I met Crooks in the Lobby of the House of Commons at the time of the outcry, and asked what he thought of it all.
"Perfectly true," he said. "We in Poplar are guilty of the great crime of inviting tenders for the supply of a few pat-a-cakes; but our horrified critics are in error in assuming that the pat-a-cakes are for the workhouse inmates. They are for the children. We order 1 cwt. for the half-year, which I believe works out at the rate of a cake for each child about once a week. There's extravagance for you! Isn't it scandalous? Just imagine our kiddies in the workhouse school getting a whole pat-a-cake to eat!