Elementary Method of Control Entirely Lacking Many recommendations for the protection of adopted children are made by the Departmental Committee on Adoption Societies and Agencies, in their report issued as a Blue Book.
Attention is called to one society, the chairman of -which stated that he had devoted many years to building up an endowment fund, which, when it had reached £100,000, would provide a regular income adequate to carry on the society's work. This was to be done by "returnable donations" lent free of interest and invested."
Most of the rules of the society, on the chairman's admission, had been ignored, states the report, and he aptly described it as a "one-man show." The only officers appointed were the chairman and a paid secretary. In two successive years there was no annual meeting, and in 1935 the accounts were prepared and audited for the first time in five years.
"It is obvious that this affairs is most unsatisfactory, the report. "The most elementary methods of contro] and supervision ate lacking. Moneys have been collected avowedly for the purposes Of the society, but have been invested with the object of providing a sufficient annual income in the distant future and without any guarantee other than the personal responsibility of the chairman that they will not-be- dissipated in unwise speculation. The expenditure on the purposes for which the society ostensibly exists is admitted to be insufficient for the maintenance of satisfactory standards.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.