Certain departments of child-protection were in existence before the days of capitalism, but these departments were greatly influenced by the changes introduced by capitalism. For this reason the direct causal relationship between capitalism and child-protection cannot always be demonstrated. It may of course happen, in any particular country, that child-protection stands at a higher or a lower level of development than appears to correspond to the general state of social evolution or to the development of capitalism in that particular country. As an example of this, we may mention Hungary, which, in the matter of child-protection, is in advance of countries where the development of capitalism and of civilisation are in a far more forward state; and in Hungary the development of child-protection has proceeded in complete independence of the shackles of historical evolution.
It is not an advantage, but a disadvantage, that child-protection is necessary to-day. The country which has need of numerous institutions for purposes of social betterment is in a bad way; and, indeed, the more of such institutions it needs, the worse must its condition be. These considerations apply to other institutions as well as to child-protection. Just as it is desirable that no institutions for social betterment should be necessary, so also we might wish that child-protection were superfluous. To put the matter in other words, it is desirable that in any country those conditions should not exist which have made it necessary to establish institutions for social betterment. The country which has no need for such institutions stands at a higher level than the country to which they are still indispensable. But of two countries which have equal need for such institutions, the one which possesses them stands at a higher level than the one in which they have not yet come into existence. This last consideration must not be forgotten when we are making a comparative study of child-protection in various countries.
Child-protection to-day is solely concerned with attempts to palliate the evils which necessarily result from the essential nature of the social organism of to-day, and is not concerned with efforts to transform the nature of that organism. Child-protection alleviates some of the symptoms of capitalism, but does nothing to prevent the ever-renewed production of such symptoms. Thus we see that child-protection is not a scientific therapeutic method, for such a method tends, as time passes, to render itself superfluous. Child-protection is an important department of social activity. But there are other much more important departments. If the amount of wealth expended for the purposes of child-protection is excessive, means requisite to the attainment of other ends will be sacrificed, and the pursuit of much more important aims may be rendered impossible. The expenditure upon child-protection is useful to this extent, that it prevents the occurrence of much harm, and yet to-day a large proportion of such expenditure is quite useless, because the evils which child-protection attempts to relieve are not, as a matter of fact, all relieved. Capitalism is the source of the factors which make child-protection necessary. Hence all our efforts for child-protection are useless so long as we continue to create institutions by which capitalism is protected and strengthened. Child-protection to-day is in essence nothing more than a number of repressive measures, which are necessary only because capitalism will not permit the desired ends to be obtained by the use of preventive methods, owing to the fact that prevention would involve the destruction of capitalism. Thus the destruction of capitalism is a postulate, not of socialism merely, but also of child-protection. Unfortunately, few people as yet recognise that prevention is the true duty of the collective intelligence; instead of searching out the causes which have made the use of repressive measures necessary, they expect a cure to result from the use of repressive measures alone.
Let our device be, Prevention. The existing social order must be completely revolutionised. Let us have done with palliatives. It is time for a new creation. Repression is good, but prevention is a great deal better! The use of palliatives is a necessary evil attaching to the existing social order; but it is a crying instance of the contradictory character of existing social conditions. It is not right that child-protection should be the leading social and political activity of the State, although at present such activity is supposed to be the climax of political science. The course of action of a community which, while protecting children, oppresses adults, is unjust; for it would be better that children should perish, than that they should grow up to lives of misery, crime, or prostitution. It is impossible to sympathise with a country which sends the children of the working class to foundling hospitals, and the adult workers themselves to prison; which protects children simply in order to increase the population, and yet forcibly, as it were, drives the adults from the country as emigrants; which offers adult workers a starvation wage, and yet benevolently keeps paupers alive; which brings up pauper children to become proletarians, which breeds working men to depress by competition the wages of their fellows, and to play the part of miserable strike-breakers.
(Hungary affords an interesting example of this, for the social and political development of this country is by no means of the most modern type, and yet, in the matter of child-protection, Hungarian institutions are perhaps the finest in the whole world. It is true that child-protection in Hungary is to a large extent no more than child-protection on paper, if for no other reason, for this, that the proper administration of the Hungarian methods of child-protection cannot be carried out efficiently by the executive personnel available in that country.)
The true child-protection, the child-protection of the future, will take the form of the destruction of capitalism. It is true that in a certain way, and within certain limits, child-protection alleviates many of the evil effects of capitalism. But there is no doubt whatever that the aims of child-protection could be attained far more efficiently and far more rapidly by the destruction of capitalism. If we were to remove the causes which make child-protection necessary, as they would be removed by the destruction of capitalism, the need for child-protection would disappear. But the causes which make child-protection necessary to-day will not disappear until the State of the future comes into being. The question presses, should we postpone our attempts to deal with the symptoms of the disease, to palliate the defects of the existing social order, until the day arrives when we shall be in a position to deal with these evils once and for all by radical measures?
No! Even to-day we have to concern ourselves with child-protection. The physician must not refuse to treat his patient because the means available for treatment will not suffice to cure. The wise physician does indeed endeavour to discover and to remove the causes of disease, but he does not neglect the symptoms. He is well aware that the disappearance of the symptoms does not indicate the cure of the disease. Nevertheless, he holds it to be his duty to prescribe certain remedies which do no more than relieve symptoms. For in many cases symptoms are disagreeable and even dangerous, and may actually lead to the death of the patient, before there is time to bring into play methods of treatment which might deal effectively with the causes of the disease. Often, too, a remedial measure which does no more than relieve symptoms may have an excellent effect upon the general bodily well-being of the patient. There are even cases in which a remedial measure exercises an unfavourable influence upon the disease and upon the patient’s general condition, and none the less it has to be administered, in order to ward off some greater evil. To-day, child-protection is useful and even indispensable. It is true that a well-planned social order affords the best child-protection, and such an order is of far greater value than child-protection in the narrower sense of the term; but this does not make the latter form of child-protection superfluous.
The Right View.—The answers to the questions asked in this chapter, and more especially the detailed answer to the question, what subdivisions of child-protection are the most important to-day, and what is the relative importance of these various subdivisions, will be found in the Special Part of this book. There I discuss the individual subdivisions of child-protection, and discuss in each case the tendency of evolution. Unquestionably, the tendency of evolution is in the direction of the better regulation of the activities applicable to the various subdivisions of child-protection.