out below some
excerpts from the report furnished to us by the Director of Education.
Our views are given immediately following the extract from the
opinion expressed by Dr Beeby, which is as follows:

"We have always felt that the spirit of the Child Welfare Act 1925
placed an obligation on us to do preventive work, and there are two
Cabinet decisions, one going back to 1941, which certainly give the
authority. However, we agree that it might be desirable to have the
obligation expressed explicitly in the Act. Indeed, in the draft
Child Welfare Bill prepared by the Division some eighteen months
ago you will find this done in two ways:

"(1) On page 43 of the draft Bill I sent you you will find Part
I devoted to preventive work, and clause 1 begins, 'It shall be
the _duty_ of the Superintendent to take positive action to
prevent children, etc.'.

"(2) On page 1 the definition of 'Child in need of care and
protection' is so widened as to cover every possible type of
preventive case, if read in conjunction with the amendments
passed during last session and with the Cabinet authorities to
spend public funds on such children.

"We do not think it necessary to increase the powers of Child
Welfare Officers for these purposes. To give them more actual
powers over children who have not committed an offence would be to
risk justifiable public objection to interference with the liberty
of the subject and the rights of parents."

_Page 58, paragraph (b)_

In its report the Mazengarb Committee said that the establishment
a few years ago of a Ministry of Social Welfare, and the urgent need
for more preventive work to be done, suggest the possibility of better
administration if "child welfare" were given an independent status
under the Ministry for Social Welfare.

This suggestion was examined by the Director of Education and by
the Superintendent of the Child Welfare Division of the Department
of Education. They reported fully to us, and their views are set out
below in summarized form.

The strongest arguments that were placed before us in support of
the view that child welfare should be a separate and independent
Department were to the following effect:

(1) The Superintendent would--as the head of his own Department--be
the captain of his own ship subject only to the direction of his
o