[CHAPTER VI]
THE EXECUTIVE INSTRUMENTS OF CHILD-PROTECTION
Introductory.—In individual countries there are three distinct factors engaged in the relief of destitution: local governing bodies, the central government, and the community at large. In different countries the various departments and activities of poor-relief are differently distributed among these several factors. Which of the three plays the leading part in this work depends upon the peculiar circumstances of the individual country. In any country that factor which predominates in the general and in the special work of administrative and executive activity is likely also to play a predominant part in the relief of destitution. The same three factors co-operate in the work of child-protection; and in any country their relative shares in this work commonly (but not necessarily) correspond to their relative shares in the work of poor-relief.
In Italy, even to-day, all three of these factors—the local authorities, the central government and the community at large—are engaged in providing for the care of foundlings and illegitimate children; but the distribution of this work among the three factors varies in different parts of the country, these differences being referable to historical causes, and more especially to the former territorial subdivisions of the country. In many countries in which national responsibility for the relief of destitution is unknown, many of the subdivisions of child-protection are nevertheless administered by the State. As an example may be mentioned the care of foundlings in France. There is a special reason for this in France, inasmuch as, owing to the fact that in this country inquiries as to the fatherhood of illegitimate children (la recherche de la paternité) are forbidden, the care of foundlings constitutes a great, general, and very pressing need, which can best be met by State action. In many countries in which the central government is responsible for poor-relief, some of the most important subdivisions of child-protection are administered by voluntary associations; England, the classical land of governmental poor-relief, affords a good example of this. Here the fact that in England voluntary associations, as the outcome of the collective activity of the community at large, have long exercised a decisive influence in all directions, accounts for the special conditions to which attention has been drawn.
Local Governing Bodies.—When we are concerned mainly with local conditions, the local governing bodies become of primary importance. They are best acquainted with the people and their needs, and their acquaintance with these is the more intimate the smaller the community. Hence the necessary duties can often be carried out most effectively and most economically by the local authorities. Many retrograde local authorities, especially the smaller ones and those in the country districts, are hostile to many of the applications of child-protection, regarding them as immoral, and they may even be quite unable to grasp the mental attitude of those who advocate child-protection. Many local authorities are very slow to undertake any extensions of communal activity; either on account of this reluctance, or else because in small communities the cost per ratepayer of the work of child-protection is easily calculated, they are apt to be too much influenced by narrow financial considerations. This is, in fact, the gravest defect of child-protection as carried out by local authorities; and this explains also why it is that many local authorities either entirely neglect the most necessary work of child-protection, or fail to perform it adequately; and it explains why the institutions founded by such authorities for the work of child-protection do not always fulfil the aims with which they were originated. It is well known that in many local government areas the homes for destitute orphans are at the same time workhouses, poorhouses, foci of all kinds of evil elements. It is well known that even to-day certain local authorities hand over the children for whose care they are legally responsible, under indentures, to those who will take them for the smallest premium, the children receiving a wage of from 20 to 30 marks yearly. For the reasons explained, we find in many countries that the relief of destitution and child-protection are associated throughout extensive areas, and even that special ad hoc local authorities exist to deal with these matters. Just what institutions we find in any particular country will naturally depend upon how in that country the individual executive and administrative functions are allotted to the various municipal authorities, district councils, and such ad hoc authorities as may exist.
The Community at Large.—Where the sphere of functional activity of the local authority and of the central government ends, there the sphere of the community at large begins. The limit is that at which the local authority and the central government regard their duties as fulfilled; beyond this limit they are unwilling to interfere, and the assistance they are able to give is no longer adapted to the individual special cases, because their work is not individual but bureaucratic. Beyond this limit, then, the community at large must take up the burden. The benevolent activities of the community at large are better able than those of the central or local authority to deal with individual cases. The work of the State is done with head and intellect, that of the community at large is done with heart and feeling. But great as these advantages are, they are counterbalanced by very grave defects. Child-protection undertaken by the community at large is often nothing more than a multiplication of fainéant societies, and an arena for self-important busybodies who wish to thrust themselves well forward in the public eye, but are completely ignorant of the subject of child-protection. (In Germany, for instance, no subdivision, however minute, of the work of child-protection can be mentioned, which does not possess a special “Society” to deal with the matter.) Child-protection as undertaken by the community at large lacks co-ordination with reference to any well-defined plan of activity, it effects much that is unnecessary and even harmful, whilst very necessary work is often done badly or not at all. The expenditure of time and money are enormous; the results attained are exceedingly small.
Of late years, especially in England and in the United States of America, societies for the organisation of the voluntary charitable activities undertaken by the community at large (the Charity Organisation Society, &c.) have come into existence; these are central organs to effect the harmonious co-ordination of philanthropic efforts, but do not usually themselves directly undertake charitable work. Such societies may play a very useful part, but they do not render the organisation and administration of poor-relief and child-protection by the central government and the local authority altogether superfluous. A very instructive example of the centralisation of voluntary activities for child-protection is that furnished by the Ungarische Kinderschutzliga (Hungarian Child-Protection League), founded in the year 1906. It is gradually absorbing all the really valuable child-protection societies, founds and administers all kinds of institutions for child-protection, is directly associated with all the executive instruments of the official work of child-protection, and sustains and amplifies the work of government in this direction. Its work is supervised from a central office in Buda-Pesth.
The Central Government.—The central government must, first of all, undertake those duties which, for financial reasons, the municipal authorities, district councils, ad hoc authorities, &c. cannot attempt. It must also satisfy certain general needs—that is, those needs whose mode of satisfaction is unaffected by varying local conditions. As in other departments of administrative activity, so also in the sphere of child-protection, a certain uniformity is requisite; and this uniformity can be attained in no other way than by the intervention of the central government. The satisfaction of very pressing needs, the overcoming of extraordinary difficulties, is possible only to the central government. Even in those countries in which local self-government is in a very advanced state of development, it is better that such legislative activity as is requisite in the domain of child-protection should be left to the central government.
The central government more readily takes over the duties of child-protection from the hands of the community at large than from the local authorities. As time goes on, ecclesiastical and voluntary benevolent activities become ever less important and less extensive as compared with those of the State. Whereas in ancient times private benevolence, and in the Middle Ages ecclesiastical benevolence, played the principal parts, in our own times these are more and more superseded by organised communal effort operating through the central government. At first the State takes over only the negative side of destitution—police regulation of mendicancy and the like. To-day there does not remain a single civilised State without at least the first beginnings of a national relief of destitution. The tendency to extend ever more widely the province of national responsibility for the relief of destitution is quite unmistakable. Those who oppose this tendency are already in a minority, and their number continues to diminish. State systems of poor-relief are by no means faultless, but the errors are not ineradicable; many of the defects are remediable, and are, in fact, being remedied as time goes on. In this respect the tendency of evolution in England, the classical land of national poor-relief, is extremely satisfactory.
The central government is harder to move, has more inertia, than the community at large. It is for this reason that new departments of activity are always first undertaken by the latter, and for this reason also that most of the subdivisions and institutions of child-protection owe their inception and the first phases of their development mainly to the community at large. But after this stage, when the new institution has been put upon its trial, when it has become generally diffused, and when its permanence is assured, it is taken over by the State. But, even then, there still remains one field of activity for the community at large, namely, to discover and draw attention to the errors in the State administration of child-protection. The development in Hungary of institutions for the care of foundlings and other illegitimate children since the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century may serve as an example of this.