The Press. — London, England, 1853-05-21 00:00:00

In ordinary eases by exile or banishment for the remain ing term of the original sentence." In a subsequent part of the letter, the advamtages offered by the Australian voluities for the ultituate reception of couvicta, after they had undergoue the wure strictly le•nal part of their sen tence, were insisted upon ; and in conclusion it was stated that " the pinit itself must for the present be considered as experimet►tal, and p►wer will 1w reserved to the (imm inent to modify it according to the results of experience. But, if perrta►rently adopted, it will be ueces►s.try to embody it in a bill to be submitted to Parliament." The general conception of this plan, how ever, WIN I►ettrr than the detail. The colo nists complained, and not without reason, that too large a measure of freedom had been granted to felons just turned loose from gaol, when all restrictions on their conduct were virtually done away, save only that which con fined them within the limits of the colony. Some relapsed into crime : as a general rule, they congregated in the towns where their labour was not required, and where association with one another retarded, if it did not pre vent, their return to habits of industry ; few, comparatively speaking, would accept situa tions in the bush. Much official corre spondence followed, not all we believe of the most amicable kind ; and in the end a com promise was agreed to, by which the future convicts, instead of going out as " exiles," or, in other words, freemen within the limits of the colony, received tickets of leave, whereby they were and are retained under the supervision of the magistrate, until exempted tlwrefrom by lapse of time and a continued course of good conduct. Lord ti rey proceeds to sum up, in the following extract, the rides ac tually in force when he quitted the Colonial office : Thaler these regulations all convicts, except those whose bodily or mental health renders them unfit for it, are in the first instance anbjected to a period of separate int risomuent, varying from six to eighteen months, accord. nig to their sentences, to the circumstances of their sevenil cases, and to the manner iii which they bear their ronfinetnent ; eighteen months being apparently the longest period for which this severe punishment Call be safely inflicted. After they leave the separate prisons, they are ordinarily removed to one of the penal establishments at homy or at I ;ihraluir or I tertntula , where they are detained and subjected to herd labour for a time, which varies Record ing, to their sentence, and to the greater or less degree of good conduit and industry they manifest. A system of laskwork, with a daily record of the work they do and of the manner in which they behave. has been established, by which convicts are enabled to 'dosage considerably the period. of their detention, by industry 141141 good cotablet, and to piss to the next stegs'. that of ticket.of.lesive ladders in the eolonies. They are found to look forward with in. tense anxiety to obtaining this lston and the lave of doing so is thus It powerful instrument for the niaint4 . llllllCe of discipline. towing those still muter coercion, whether nt home or abroad. A few, who prove altogether untnanage. able at home, are sent to Nortblk Island, instead of with tickets ',cleave to mother cultmy. and some are also milli to Van lliemeWm teapot or Western Australia without tn•krts of leave : but these Iwo Classes fortii only a small proportion of the. witote. settaing anv convicts to liii• Colonies without tickets of leave Will 4 it d,pu 1tt0'(110111 0111' original OW it was 1;01111t1 ner,•s•,ll to Wild 1111 . 1. W in this 111111111er, til order to keep up the estalolislunents re. twirls! in the colonies flit the weevil tttt and punishment of men wltosr tiekets of leave might Ity witlelnts it hit. 110,- 84,10 ml ; and it also appeared that a valuable tublitiim might thins br male to the means of matt• • g discipline among the large ladies of eonvicts at }suite. It, the colottit , s, those to whom t Whet sof Inv granted ore not allowed to leave the eitstod •11 the Goi et H ewitt until they have made an agreement with some settler to !wive him tot not less than a year ; the employets being relamsible our pating to the thivernment a certain stun annually from their wages. The ticket-of-leave holders we not considered eligible for eotalitiottial pardons mail they have paid a certain sum in this manner, and have be tuned well for a f varying aceording to the length of their sentence. Thins a nuns transtawted tin• seven yearn most Iwhave well, as tiekt.t-of-lo.me lathier, forgot l e ss than a year and a half, in which his uagps, at the vote of 5 1 a 1111% or i 1 .1 0 ,. in all. mot be paid to the I iorcrlllat . lll. 1111111 tea llspOlielt for twenty ears. or for lit.', i utiLtil4o turn ronditiun.,l pnudonuntil Ili . hull 10411:Weil well !Or tiVe and hits paid • 251. to the t loverti went. this regulatitat. together with those by which a primmer eon abridge the iwrital passed by him in the pre limittat y stages of his punishment. by industry and guts! eotaltiel• he may 'dean' a conditional pardon when I l e has Completed about halt ' the term of his sentence. a sentence for life !wing reck.atell for this pitilsise equivalent to one for twenty )ears. The holders of tickets of leave are re quired to resident vertaiit districts, mid.ol4 a gruel,d rule, at U distance from the towns and more settled portions of the colonies. Space is Ivonting to allow us to follow Lord Grey through his interesting detail Of the practical difficulties encountered in establish ing the system here described. These were necessarily considerable : first., on account of the crowded state of 'Van Diemen's Land, THE PRESS.. where alone, between 1E441 and 1E 4 444, felons could be received ; next, from the fluctuations of public opinion in the various colonies affected ; and, lastly, in consequence of some errors of judgment," us Lord. Grey frankly admits them to have been, which led to plausible, but, in our judgment, utterly groundless, imputations of intentional bad fiiith. The very faults of Lord Grey's charac ter are such as ought to exempt him from the suspicion of duplicity. It is the pliant, easy going, popular politician—the man anxious to stand well with all sides, not the austere, imperious, and inflexible statesman, almost morbidly jealous of his honour, and cherishing consistency with a pride rare in these days — who pledges his word without the intention Of redeeming it. But on these personal topics we will not dwell. It is worth notice, as being creditable to the Conservative Opposi tion, no less than to the Whig minister, that although the reforms proposed by the latter naturally led to much parliamentiny discus sion, and required a good deal of explanation to make them generally understood, they were not, on any occasion, selected as a battlefield of party, nor was an attempt made in any quarter (save once or twice by members of the present Government) to represent them, as might easily have been done, in the light of hazardous experiments, by which more would be risked than gained. All Lord Grey's diffi culties, as he himself acknowledges, arose in Australia and not in England. But even in Australia a part, and not All unimportant pant, of the population are at this hour fitvouruble to a continuance of the thinsportatien system. While the Anti-convict Longue carried all before it in Van Diemen 's Land and the southern districts of New South Wales, meetings were being held, and petitions numerously signed, among the colonists of Moreton Bay, praying for the introduction of fresh convicts to supply the pressing deficiency of free labour. That the jealousy of the New South Wales la bourers will even so fitr relax as to allow of their petition being granted we do not antici pate ; but Lord Grey points out an easy remedy in the separation of Moreton Bay front the colony within whose territorial limits it is at present included, but with which, in respect of material interests, it has nothing in eommon. This course would appear to have been neither definitively approved nor rejected by the Colonial-office at the time of the Whig !resignation lie : SO matters rested when we left °thee, and I neither know wlua mar have lwen knee alone by our successors, nor what further would hare been deadest upon lay your Cabinet, had it. Mill remained in existence, when the 11104Wers to the despatchesWidi s h hail been Written Were received. Itnt 1 inlay he relliiittisi tea express my own opinion, that if it had then appeared that the admission of eonviets tr the district of Moreton Bay wits as decidedly called for by the wishes of the inhabitants as there was reason to believe, while owing to the olgoositiun of Sydney it remit! only Ire aceomplisheal by a division of the motility. it would have lawn right to adopt that measure. At the, same time, I think it was tea Ile desired that this divishoi should be deferred, and that the Legislature of New Sleuth Wales should he induced to consent to the opening of the squat ting districts for the reception of conriets. Could the Ley.,fislative C ttttt have fawn induced to do so. it would have been easy, without dividing New South Wales for other purposes, tea have framed an order in council pro riding for the introdueti tttt convicts into the colony. but only into a part of it strictly defined. and limited so as to exclude the towns and more settled distticts. It. is, I know, considered that the discovery of gold is an obstacle tea s u ch a m e asure. 9 a n d that it is allSOrd ter nom ley sending him tea a country where gold is to lw ob tained. Those who make this objection seem to forget that at man sentenced to transportation cannot. hope tea lw relieved from constraint, so as tel be able to join in the exciting seareh for gold. until he lass completed at least half the tent, of his sentence. It is surely an nlasurdity to suppose that any 1111111 will, from the desire of ultimately making his way to the diggings. deliberately expose himself tea several mouths of the stern discipline of Pentonville, fe allowed lay a year or two. and perhaps much more, of severe labour at Pentland, in order to be sent to Australia, where on his arrival he will la' resmired to work hard far from the gold legions, without. receiving all his earnings fora far ther period, which may extend to tire years or even fluor'. Those who wish to reach the mines may do a.) far more easily than by the road of transportation, nor do 1 believe that the dread lit ihr lthiSllllleld will lw iu the slightest degree diminished by its being known that. atter a la riot of severe endurance. at the end or a tilaa , in taut cease less OHO *IMP years and a hulf, and which in general will be far more. ( salvias wise II;Ive passed through this adOettl will tied themselves within SilMe‘"ll4.o easier WWII tat ' the gold fields than they were. before they committed the crimes for which they hare suffered. Criminals. of all aim are th os e who lewd ienk forward to advantages s ea distant, an d t o b e purchased by so mach previous privation and aintoiug; SATURDAY, the immediate gratification of their passions is the ruling motive of their lives. But, while the diseovery of gold affbrds no valid objection to the removal of criminals to Australia. it. has greatly increased the want which is felt there. of the only class of labourers whose services can be calculated on, in order to carry on other and not less im portant occupations than the search for gold, which draws away by its seductions so many of those who are free to join in the pursuit. This is a clear and concise vindication of the transportation system ; and as such we insert it, only qualifying our assent to its reasonings with two remarks. First—that Lord Grey, in his argument against the probability of any one getting himself transported on purpose, assumes, on behalf of the criminal classes, a more accurate acquaintance with the real nature of the penalty than such classes are likely to possess; and, secondly—it is probable that as wages rise, and employers tind greater trouble in suiting themselves with servants, the liberated criminal may succeed in over coming the prejudice which at present renders it impossible for him to live honestly in Eng land. But, as things now are, we cannot forget that, but for the system of penal exile now so loudly condemned, we should have had in this country, residing among us, not less than 48,000 ex-convicts, the great majority of whom must have subsisted at the expense of society. Nor would Australasia have been a gainer ; for it is notoriously owing to the abundance of compulsory labour that Van Diemen's Land continued to gather in its crops, and carry on its ordinary pursuits, while the rush to the diggings left lands elsewhere uncultivated and harvests unreaped. In a postscript dated Feb. 22, 1853, Lord Grey deprecates strongly (as he has since done in the House of Lords) a total discontinuance of penal exile. The intention of Sir John Poking ton to send no more convicts to Van Diemen's Land did not, he states, surprise him. If the interests of the colony were thereby injured, the colonists, who demanded the change, were abate to Maine. Means might have been found to dispose of the convicts elsewhere ; and if, as intended by Sir John, due time were taken to complete the new arrangements before those formerly in force were discontinued, little or no 11111.111 would have resulted : nut we are now told that the removal of convicts to Van Inemen's Land is to mow et once, and that it is not to be continued for more than a short time to any of the Anstre- Ilan colonies. This involves an entire change in the present system of secondary punishment and lam al together at a loss to understand how the new arrangements which will in coestsmence he necessary can be matured with due care and deliberation, and how they can be sub mitted to the judgement of Parliament in the very short time that will be allowed for the purpose. What is 10 be come of the large number of convicts now undergoing their preliminary punishment, and to whom an express promise has been made that by good conduct they would Ottani tickets of leave in the colonies at sit early period ? There cannot lii less, 1 apprehend, than front two to three hundred men monthly becoming entitled to this boon for the next two or three years. and it will lie a difficult owes. tion to determine what is to be done with them. Faith cannot. of course, be broken with these men by dent' • g them at Portland, or any other of our penal establishments, Iwyend the time at which they have tt right, under the regulations printed for their information, to look for their release from the forced labour there Untamed upon them. lint, if the Australian colonies are to be chased against them, I am not aware of any other place to which they elm he sent : and I am quite certain there is no part of the British dominions in which it is possible to make arrangements for receiving them with tickets of leave in the time within which some mode of disposing of them must be discovered. To send them abroad as exiles would prebably be equally diMirnit, and would be merely rerun ring to our original phut, which was given up became it WAN folllld mot to answer. Ate they then, as a substitute for the tickets of lea; e they have been pramiaed in the colonies, to lie allowed their discharge in this country ? and is the ultimate re moval from their native country of criminals assitenced to tnutsportation to cease in future to be an essential part of their punishment" If this is what is intended, I ant cont. pelted to express my opinion, that so momentotts a change in what has been our policy for near two hnndred yeant ought not to have been decided upon without the previous concurrence of Parliament. So fur AS has yet been ex pressed, the judgment of Parliament has been decidedly adverse to doing away with the punishment of transporta tion. I have mentioned in my eighth letter the opinion expressed in 1547 by the committee of the House of Lords, atter examining the judges and many }tenants of gnat experience in the adiniuistration of our criminal I have also mentioned that. in 1/.411.mi address to the Crown was voted by the House el Continues against the Omens meat of that day. ob,iceting to the detention in this coun try of convicts senteneed to transportation. None of the motions made dining your own athuinistration, fur obtain ing a contrary - opinion from the same house, obtained any considerable support. Looking flusher back, even the committee which. in 1838, condemned the former system of transportation, did not fail to recognise the advantage,