SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1886. CHARITABLE AID CHARGES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume VIII, Issue 1399, 14 August 1886, Page 2

SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1886. CHARITABLE AID CHARGES.

We noted, the other day, that an attempt was being made to compel tho Hospital Board for this district to recoup to one of the industrial schools the cost of maintaining children committed to it bj the Courts. Tha matter was held over by the Board ; but as it is of public concern, it may be worth while to examine into it more closely. The Hospitals Act is perfectly clear. It provides that foe childcea seat up to tlvs Industi- al School under section 16 of the Industrial Schools Act of 1882, the hospital board of the district is liable for the cost of subsistence up

to, but not exceeding, a sum of 8s per week. Tbe section of the Act of 1882 referred to sets forth, in equally clear terms, that any child having no means of subsistence, or whose parent is in indigent circumstances and unable to support such child, may be taken by any constable before the nearest Resident Magistrate, who may make an order directing such child to be forthwith sent to an industrial school, to be detained until he shall have attained the age of fifteen year 9. From the above it would appear that for any child committed to an industrial school solely on account of indigency of himself or his parents, the Board is liable to pay 8s per week. Seeing that the Board would be liable for the cost of giving charitable aid to an indigent child, if it stayed within the district, the provision for payment by the Board se v ms reasonable enough ; but, if any attempt is being made by the Industrial School in question to recover the cost of maintaing children in the reformatory schools, who have been committed there by a magistrate or two justices " in addition to or in lieu of punishment for an offence punishable by imprisonment," then it it is clearly the duty of the board to resist the claim most strenuously, eyeix to the extent of contesting it in a civil action. It is no part of tbe duty of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board to defray any of the cost of tho criminal or gaol expenditure. That is and ought to be strictly a colonial and not a district charge ; local boards should therefore insist upon tho production of an exact copy of the charge-sheet under which each child was committed to an industrial school, before agreeing to pass the sums claimed for maintenance. Within this immediate district we cannot call to mind any recent committal of a child to an industrial school simply on the ground of having no means of subsistence. In fact, the numerous applications recently lodged in Auckland for a little runaway Fijian boy, by persons willing to take care of him, prove that children, if beyond the age of infants and unconnected with the criminal classes, are not regarded by the New Zealand public as mere encumbrances. Tha law of New Zealand offers great facilities for the adoption of the waifs and strays of society, and it may not be out of place to suggest that before committing any of the fatherless and motherless children to the somewhat questionable society of an industrial school, the courts would act wisely in first inviting applications from respectable persons who might bo willing to offer such neglected orphans a home, until they reached the age of fifteen, fixed by the Act as the limit of ag« up to which they may be detained.