The Press. — London, England, 1853-07-16 00:00:00

to grant. Rut, from the perfunctory manner in which this eminent personage discharged his duty of Statement, we are by no means certain whether these powers really do exist 4)1. no ; and we therefore confine our criticism to the leading features of the measure. It is, no doubt, idle to suppose that the law respecting transportation co u ld have been vaunted in its existing state. All statesmen, 41f all parties, recognise the necessity of sumo change. Mere exile—the penalty of banish ment beyond seas as such—lets confessedly lost its deterring power. Indeed, Lord ORM( fully admitted this foict when, in '47-s, he intro duced the system of penal servitude previous to transportation. The real question now is, mot what shall be done with felons during the terns of their sentence, but what shall tat done with them afterwards? Everyloody is agreed that confinement and labour are the proper punishments ; but these punishments cannot be made to last through life; and what is to follow? Herein lies the great and irremediable defect of the Government measure. Some three t immune) coniviets are annually nen teneed in England and Wales. Of these, eight hundred are still to be sent to Australia idler their imprisonment. Upwards of two thousand remain, all of whom will be turned loose upon English society, to coni,vregate in our towns, to establish normal schools of crime, and to form in every great city a nucleus of disturbance and vice. Not the slightest se curity is taken for their good conduct. if again deteetAsi and punished, they are liable to no additional penalty as hardened and incorrigible offenders. Assuming that the average of felons scampi' survive by ten years their liberation from prison—a osomputa tion very far below the probable reality—we shall have twenty thousand freed convicts at large in the country at one time. Nor is it any answer to this grave objeetion too say. " Wages are high—employment, abounds—em " ployers are less likely tone scrupulous about " character than they were—the released pri " soner will not be driven back by sheer neces " sity to a life of crime." For, in the first place. we doubt whether any such inereame of • wages as emigration is likely to produce—coneiderable though that may be—will reconcile 111111 in general to the hiring of convicted and notorious criminals. Nor do we greatly wish that it should be so ; for thus one of the principal securities against misconduct among the poorer class would be utterly done away, a fact which philanthropists. when they patronise " reformed " felons in preference to honest labourers, are very apt to overlook. Secondly, that the majority of criminals are not driven by want to offend against the law, is as certain as any fact not capable of absolute demonstrottion Can be. Early habits and training do much ; the in fluence of companions, and the dislike of labour, are Both operating causes ; but it is, after all, the Inward, the excitement, the dis play of fraudulent dexterity, which are the great incentives to vice, making, as they do, the sober routine of manual or mechanical labour seem dull and tame in comparison. What, then, is the remedy? Either to place the liberated prisoner under supervision, leav ing to Government the power of cancelling his freedom it' abused, or to remove him to a sphere of action where recurrence to criminal practices is impossible. lioth these safe guards were combined in the transportattion system its established by Lord 14: II BY in '42. and amended in '4S by Lord I;REY. One was ensured by the granting of tickets of leave; the other by location in a poor and sparsely , peopled colony. The most inveterate burglar settled OH an Australian sheep-walk. with every inducement to wml4, and nothing to steal. could not but change his predatory habits. Both these safeguards are, by the Duke of NeweAorrt.E's plan, done away ; tutu nothing 'fed. impossible not to see in this reekless spirit teed, it be susceptible sing almost to entire can be snifered to is substitute& It is impos - sible not to see that a measure framed in this reekless spirit oyin require —if, indeed. it be susceptible /7 44 : kl-- 1 4hgeRi went amounting almost to entire N rtrOnt 4 tit . A161 ) (4 0 11' it. Ilan he suffered to unto' It' -- • " tk . ,i,":. a \ ‘..mz. fr fre ~um *gest that a larger number of r..... -_ _, .tie c'elnicz.e,_ 411 lint at present contemplated Ity k .- eibuild lst".4 ' to the Australian colonies. Ii 1 .1 ,1: JihtieOltt ttit, 010nit4.4 t'thitl4 thim : anti the . ,•. 8 ' *. \„.. NZ 4 :44 aliii THE PRESS. attraction of the gold-fields renders it inex pedient. But Australia is not the only spot in the British dominions to which the tide of convict emigration may be turned. In the vast regions which extend northward and westward of Canada—far beyond the limits of the province—far out of the way of voluntary settlers— there is room and space enough to try this neeessaly experiment. We 'lame a Siberia, if we choose to make use of it. Con viet colonies may there be planted without either driving our free emigrants to remon strance and revolt, or endangering society at home by the unchecked aecumulattion of clime. Will no legislator entertain the propo sition ? THE QUART Eitl REITEN lIE A CCO 1I wrs. Wk.. promised last week that we would coin ment upon the effects likely to be produced by the measures of t tur paragon Financier Minister upon the favourable condition of things which the quarterly accounts of revenue exhibit. We admitted readily the indications of com mercial and manufaeturing prosperity which those accounts and the tables of the Board of Trade afford. The increase on the quarter ending sth July, 185:1, as compared with the quarter ending sth July, 1852, is no loss than 1,116,636/. The excess of income over expendi ture, at the expiration of the financial year end ing sth April b:st, amounted to the large sum of 2 ; 160,7411. ; and, supposing the tide of events to have advanced smoothly and satisfactorily— seeing, its we have already stated, that upon the very first quarter of the present year there is an excess of more than a million in the re venue as compared with last year—it is really difficult to be too sanguine as to what the ex cess of income, under prudent management, might have been on the sth April, 1854. Cer tainly no one can deny, that the condition of the public revenue afforded the CHAstem.t.oa of the ExenzouEit more favourable grounds for his operations than has been the lot of any of his predecessors. Let us now see how he has taken advantage of it. Mr. DISRAELI, last December, adopted the unusual and most hazardous course of antici pating the ordinary financial statement of April, and he propounded a plan which in volved, in point of fact, a Budget for two sue cessive years at the least. It was a bold and a manly undertaking to lay his financial plans before the piddle at the earliest possible period, and under the most disadvantageous circum stances. We undertake to prove to our readers—contrasting the financial plans of Mr. DISRAELI with those of Mr. GLADSTONE— that the former was marked by consummate caution, as well as ability ; while the. latter (we deny not its ability) has evinced a want of foresight and prudence which we certainly should not have expected from the experience and general character of Mr. GLADSToN E. As a preliminary, it is necessary to ~, l ance at the position of the two Financial MilliSterS when their statements were respectively inade. D Mr. ootA Eli, as we have stated, had to antici , pate nearly one-third of the financial year, both as regards income and expenditure : he might have talented to be rush, for then there was no prospect of a foreign war. Mr. GLAD STONE, in April, had the advantage, and used it, of Mr. DIsRAELI'S statement. Nearly two and a half millions was the ascertained excess of income over expenditure, and there was a balance in the Exchequer of 7,850,0001. Mr. GLADSTONE, therefore, had at once a knowledge of his adversary's game, and cards in his hand, it' we may be excused the expression, which, if played cautiously, could not fail to be played triumphantly. But there was a need of eaution : at no time are the finances of England to be tampered with, anti there was a cloud in the East which Mr. GLAIS4TONE must have been aware portended or might portend a hurricane. Let us turn now to the measures. Mr. DISRAELI proposed operating in the way of reductions upon the tea duties and the malt tax—both consumers taxes—and raising the price of what may be considered necessaries ; the latter also long considered a grievance. SATURDAY, anti operating injuriously in many ways upon the agricultural interest. Mr. DISRAELI, there fore, while he framed a Keheme—which no one can deny was in strict accordance with the policy in favour of which the country had pro nouuced its verdict at the general election— adopted likewise the - course—the only one open—of doing au act of justice to the English firmer. But there wits another characteristic in Mr. DISRAELI'S financial policy. It is now an 'axiom. that reductions of duties affecting articles of. genentl consumption will gnulually replace themselves, and therefore, though the reduction of the tea and malt ditties might cause a temporary chasm in the revenue, it was a chasm which the increased consunipti4at would soon supply. In the Budget of Mr. DisnAtim, therefore, there WaR nothing which involved a certain and permanent loss to the revenue. But further. Mr. Dismextt commenced his operations by proposing to Parliament, not Ins reductions, but his increases, of taxation. He adopted the course of ascertaining, in the first instance, what augmentation of taxation Parliament would sanction, previous to asking for those remissions which he considered wise and politic. Accordingly, he took the issue upon the increase of the house tax. Had he taken it upon the income tax, or any of his proposed mitigations, he would have been the Minister still ; but, in the course he adopted, we aver that, although he sacrificed office, he displayed the prudence, caution, and honesty which become the Financial Minister of Great Britain. _ _ ..... Mr. tli.AicrotiF. anticipated his own Budget by a scheme which Wilk to place him on the highest pedestal of British statesmen. The commutation of the nine millions and a half of what he called the patriarchal stock was but a minor part of this great scheme. B y this minor operation the country was indeed to be secured the moderate saving of yn,oooi. a year. But the establishment of " a permanent " irredeemable public debt of Two-and-a-Half " per Cent. was the ultimate aim and key of " his plan." His Exchequer Bonds were to be " the popular current securities," limited, it is true, in the first instance, to thirty zillions ; " but the House was by no means to assume " that thirty millions was the extent to which " Parliament would go." The other two sr cies of new stock in the original proposition were not to be limited even to the moderate sum of thirty millions. We must confine ourselves for the present to the results of the great scheme for the con version of the national debt. Has it been successful .evert as regards the minor stock of nine and a halt' millions upon which Ali.. GLADSTONE assured us a saving of at least 25,000/. a year was to be effected? By a re turn moved for by Mr. DISRAELI it appeal's that only 1,39,4,004/. 14s. 10d. has been ex changed for any of the new stocks, and that out of this sum there has been taken in Mr. OLAnsTosx'a " popular current securities " the transeendental amount of 5,170/. lt4i4. 4d. !!! The result, therefore, of this great scheme for the conversion of the national debt—Mr. GLADSTONE'S first financial proposition—can only be described as simple, utter, ludicrous, failure. The country stands committed to pay in money, to the holders of this patriarchal stock, on the sth of January, 1t454, more than eight millions—which may, perchance, have to be raised under the disadvantageous eircum stances of a continental war!!! and the antici pated saving of 25,0001. a year be thus con verted into a positive loss. Space will not admit of our prosecuting the subjeet further in our present number, but we hope to resume it in our next. • THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN-THE POPE IN DANGER. NICHOLAS the Czar has proclaimed the tenth crusade. Seven hundred years have elapsed since Pope URBAN 11. decreed the first. The descendant of PrrEn the Great has donned the hair shirt and mantle of PETER the Hermit ; and all Muscovy resounds with the cry of Ilirrowlyma ext pre-dila !" It has always been accepted as an evidence of the nonage of civilisation that on nine succes-