Report of the Royal Commission on the care and control of the feeble-minded, Volume VIII.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the care and control of the feeble-minded, Volume VIII. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    543/552 (page 507)
    advisory body only, and it is not for the Home Office, or any other Depart- ment to defend it for giving such advice as it offers. The Home Secretary -could not justly be made responsible for the opinions of this detached body and perhaps he would not agree with their views, and could not, therefore, be expected to defend them efficiently. Whether or not a Member of Parliament •should be allotted to represent the Board of Control in the House of Commons, as at present is the case with regard to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Charity Commissioners respectively, is a matter upon which opinions may be divided. For my own part, I think that an Honorary Commissioner might well be invariably selected to be their mouthpiece, if necessary, in the House of Commons. The main matters on which the affairs of the Board would be likely to come before Parliament would be with reference to the salaries of its paid Members and its expenses which have been supported on •the estimates hitherto by the Home Secretary. As a matter of fact since 1845 I believe there have only been a very few years when there have not been Honorary Lunacy Commissioners with seats both in the Lords and Commons, and hardly ever when the Lunacy Commission was entirely unrepresented. T cannot trace in the evidence anything to justify the inference that the independent constitution of the Lunacy Commission should be changed. The existence on the Board of several Honorary Members distinguishes it from other bodies such, for instance, as the Prison Commission, which consists entirely of salaried members subordinate to the Home Office, appointed on Civil Service terms. One great object in appointing honorary members is to give an assurance to the public that mental defectives who are not criminals will be supervised by competent fearless independent persons—responsible to no department and free from official direction and control—persons who are bound to make public reports, criticising if necessary even a Department of State and its highest officers. 31. In 1845 when the Permanent Lunacy Commission was established, it was carefullydesigned that the Commissioners who had to carryout the duties of inspec- tion should be placed in an entirely independent position, and should be subject to no incentive to yield to popular outcry. They were appointed to serve during their good behaviour, and not for a term of years nor at the will of a Minister. After the first appointments which were made by Parliament itself their successors were to be selected by the Lord Chancellor. Moreover, in order still more to secure the independence of the Commission, the appointment of honorary Commissioners during good behaviour was made one of its features. They represent, apart from technical knowledge and experience, the general common-sense of the public, and afford a security that professional hobbies and experiments will not be introduced into the administration of asylums and institutions under their supervision, and that officialism shall not reign supreme. 32. The position of the unpaid or honorary Commissioners has been more than once the subject of consideration by Commissions and Committees. In his evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Lunatics in 1859, Lord Shaftesbury said : — “ They ■were to have powers pretty nearly co-ordinate with the rest of the Commissioners, to go upon ■visitations in lunacy, and to take part in all the business of the commission; but what are called the statutory duties, that is, the necessity of visiting—which necessity or duty in the metropolis is imposed exclusively upon the professional Commissioners—these statutory duties must be performed by a medical man and a legal man, in conjunction. The lay element was considered to be of very great importance indeed, in the working of the commission, and I can say, from very long experience in this matter, that the non-professional element, not only upon the commission, but among the visiting magistrates in the country, and in every possible department relating to the care and treatment of lunatics, is of the most indispensable importance, and without it I am quite certain that the whole system of the management of lunatics would fall into the greatest disorder, and we should relapse into many of the errors from which we have been extricated.” 33. At the time of giving his evidence before the Select Committee on Lunacy Law in 1877, when Lord Shaftesbury had been on the Commission thirty-two years, it does not appear that he had reason to suggest any change. I think that the importance of having unpaid Commissioners is as great now as