"The counterparts of the first two of the above offences are already punishable under the Vagrancy Acts, and a third repetition of them renders the offender liable to imprisonment for not more than one year with hard labour. For this punishment we propose to substitute committal to a Detention Colony for any period between six months and three years. This proposal is in general harmony with the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy, and we believe it to be essential to the proper treatment of the ins-and-outs, the work-shy, and the loafer. Moreover, by removing these cases to the care of another authority, the Public Assistance Authority will be enabled to deal more effectively and more hopefully with the better class of workmen applying for assistance."[89]

Again:—

"Stronger measures—particularly detention—should be taken in dealing with the ins-and-outs. Public Assistance Authorities should have power to retain the children of such under their care, and to take proceedings to secure the detention and training of the parents in a suitable institution or colony, until they are prepared to maintain themselves and their families outside.

"Feeble-minded ins-and-outs should be detained in suitable institutions according to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Feeble-minded.

"For able-bodied ins-and-outs, who are incapable of maintaining themselves permanently owing to want of discipline, application, or skill, provision should be made by which they would labour according to their strength, and support themselves as far as possible; more varied work might be furnished, and their labour made more productive in supplying the needs of the institution to which they are admitted.

"For those frequenting Public Assistance Institutions who are confirmed drunkards, and persons leading immoral lives there should be power of detention after their incapacity to lead a decent life has been proved.

"Paupers well able to work, i.e., cases of persistent idleness, should be referred to a Detention Colony under the Home Office."[90]

As I have already shown, every one of these social offences is punished by detention and disciplinary treatment in Forced Labour Colonies, variously called, on the Continent. Not only so, but we have seen that the power to commit to these institutions is in many towns exercised by the Poor Law Authorities, either independently of or concurrently with the police and the magistrates.

Beyond recommending that the Detention Colonies should be established by the State, and that the local Public Assistance Authorities should pay for the maintenance of individuals detained by their order or request, the Commission do not go into details, but accept the general conclusions of the Vagrancy Committee.

Not less gratifying than the attitude towards the question of vagrancy of these official investigators is the widespread support which Poor Law Authorities in general have given during the past several years to the repressive policy which is now before the country. The proceedings of the Poor Law Conferences and the Reports of Poor Law Inspectors testify clearly to the new spirit which has come over public opinion. Wherever we look, indeed, signs of changed opinions, abandoned prejudices, and expectations of a new departure are visible. It is not too much to hope and to ask that one of the first steps in the reform of the law of public relief may be the subjection to wholesome systematic restraint of all those parasitic sections of the population which now abuse public and private charity. Only when they cease to obstruct the path of the social reformer will it be possible to view in its true proportions and relationships the momentous question of society's obligation to the unemployed and the helpless poor.

[APPENDIX I.]

THE CHILDREN ACT, 1908, AND VAGRANTS.