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

MAY 21, 1853. Wales disproportionate to its numerical and territorial greatness. In 1828 her exports were 90,000/.: in Isl4B they were 1,800,0001.; indicating an increase of twenty to one in as many years. Her territory extends over eleven degrees of latitude, and nearly eight of longitude. Her chief city, Sydney. already rivals in importance the much older settle ments of Montreal or Toronto, and may fairly vie with any American town of only equal antiquity. In a word, it is impossible to look at the statistics of Australian prosperity with out seeing that they furnish the most com plete vindication of that very system which they are sometimes cited to disparage. When colonists declaim, in a tone of indignant virtue, against the sending of convicts to a country so populous, wealthy, and flourishing, it is not unreasonable to answer, " Yes—but " who created this wealth? Who gave you " this prosperity of which you boast—this " strength which you threaten to use against " us ? The very class whose presence you treat "as pollution, but of the aid of whose services "your fathers were glad." But still, it is said, material advantages are not alone to be considered ; nor are they worth having at the price of month degra a tion. Certainly not : but how stands the case ? The police of Australia is excelle nt ; by the peculiar circumstances of the country it has been stimulated to unusual vigilance ; crime does not lurk undetected ; the number of convictions is a fair measure of the number of offences committed ; yet it is as certain as any generalisation from statistical details can be, that the number of convictions, compared with the population, is less in Australia than in the British islands. With regard to the security of life and property in that island which has so often been spoken of as a pandemonium of vice, Lord Grey cites the following testimony. It is in itself conclu sive, and is borne out by a multitude of other witnesses : In the dearth of aecommodation within the rounds of the police, I was glad, after living three weeks in the ship, to take a lone house three miles from Launceston, on a road not patrolled, with a navigable river in its front, and dense bush behind it. My neighbours, at the distance of a long half mile, are a farmer who was a convict, a smith, a shoe. maker, awl a joiner, all of whom had been in the same predicament; and thus with my seven dogs, null my pistols distributed amongst my English and German servants, I awaited my fate. My German governess, whose father is a captain in the Franktert service, loaded a double barrelled gnu ; and my German butler contrived to have a complete armament in his bedroom : he put strings to a miserable dinner•bell, and on the least alas we went our nightly rounds. We have a nasty ugly hill between us and the town, where the horses must walk, and where there is cover for highwaymen; so it was long a piestion whether I, the master of the house, ought to be out after dark, and whether we could safely accept dinner and dance invita tions in the town. To.morrow I shall have been six months in my lone house. I went into my pantry yesterday. and my butler's pistols were not loaded. My German governess sent her donble-barrel to be cleaned, and has not asked for it again. The plate is no longer brought regularly into my bedroom. 1 leave my forty-gninea " Mortimer" doitioletifle in my study at the other end of the house. I have a convict coachman, a convict gardener, awl some farm labourers who were sent nut here. My coachman and gardener live nit the premises : we seem to have altogether ceased to feel alarm. We are out at all hours of day or night, without. p rer aution and without apprehension. I have begu n this letter in this somewhat trivial manner, because I think that one personal ease is better than a quantity of generali sation. BM I may g.) on to say, that we have spent days wed nights in other settlers' images, far more lonely and unprotected than our ovrn,—lumse,4 built at different times, like our old English manor-housea. fun of corners and crevices, steps up and steps down, with fastenings to doom and windows of most untrustw , 'Pity detieription. I have walked through usz dense bush, and driven miles and miles over roads where escape by means of speed loul been impos. sible. Cheap living, a healthy climate, abundauce of pleasant employment. a firm Government, an active police. and, I may add, contort even in the prisons,—these. and es pecially the three first, guarantee safety to our lives and property. • • • - Lord Grey goes on to contend that the anti convict agitation is artificial—the work of a few journalists, mob-orators, and anti-impel - id partisans. We do not set too much value on these excuses, the invariable resource of a beaten party; but we readily believe that the sincere haters of transportation are and were a very small minority of all that motley host whose outcry against the Colonial-office stunned the ears of Parliament. The movement in reality had two characters : it claimed to defend the cause of colonial independence ; and under that popular banner were ranged THE PRESS. not a few who little thought that they were in reality fighting for the monopoly of labour in the hands of tree emigrants. These lust. the working hands. many of them long settled iu the colony, and well knowing its ways, were little disposed to accede to any measures. however calculated to benefit the employer, which would have the effect of reducing their own exorbitant wages ; although the very fail of these wages being higher than capitalists could afford generally to pay tended to dimi nish the quantity of employment, and thus ultimately to injure the very persons who believed themselves to be benethiug thereby. It is only for a time that one class can profit at the expense of another. In the long run, the interest of society in general becomes the interest of every member of it. But not so argued the Australian labourers. All they, knew of the matter was, that every new influx of emigrants, whether bond or free, tended to lessen their gains, and destroy the virtual supremacy over the employer which they had hitherto possessed. Free emigration they could not of course oppose. They or thvir fathers hed actually been emigrants ; and the benefit to the colony from an increase of popu lation was too obvious to be disputed. But in denouncing the introduction of convicts they were safe. The selfish purpose was effeetually concealed under the mask of pure patriotism and exalted morality. And it would be unjust. to suppose that many did not really feel what, the majority professed to believe. There is doubtless a certain degradation attached in public estimation to the idea of a penal settle ment, though experience has shown that, reclaimed convicts do not, as a class, when removed from temptation, and engaged in industrial pursuits, relapse into their tOrmer habits. Perhaps the right of England to employ the Australian settlements for the purpose for which they were originally founded has been, both by Lord Grey and other colo nial ministers. too barely and nakedly put forward. That there exists among our coun trymen at the antipodes no real unanimity of opposition to the introduction of criminal exiles, in moderate numbers and with due precautions, is sufficiently shown by the vote of the Legislative Council of New South Wales in IR4B. But to that vote, and its subsequent reversal by the same body, we cannot here do more than allude in passing. In considering the transportation question as dealt with by Lord Grey, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that under this general and somewhat inaccurate designation have been comprised punishments differing very widely, at different periods, both in their nature and in the severity with which they were inflicted. When the system originated, in 17R7, it is probable that. by a majority of the prisoners sentenced, the actual exile—the bamishmeut—the enforced separation from home and friends—was felt as the most pain ful part of the infliction. Australia was then a country absolutely unknown to the mass Of Englishmen, and of which little except a rude outline of coast was laid down in the best. maps. Voluntary emigration beyond seas was an experiment still untried. In the West, a. few hardy pioneers, penetrating beyond the French settlements of Canada, and establish ing themselves on the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario, disputed the possession of their scattered bush-farms with those Indian tribes which then roamed freely over the magnificent province of Canada West. The reports which at rare intervals reached England from these early settlers were not such as to invite any save professed lovers of adventure to follow in their track. But even these reports were, to the great body of the people, matters 14 no interest. The example of emigration had not. been set—the national exodus had not com menced. The few who quitted their homes to reside in a colony became to those whom they left behind as if they had ceased to be. For them there was no communication with former friends—scarcely even the hope of return. And thus it came about that the mere change of place—in our day an inducement rather than a deterring penalty—was regarded by the eonviets of fifty years ago as a real and terrible punishment ; whence also it fol lowed that, though hard work and privation were very frequently the lot of thu toussported 68 felon, Government troubled itself little about the amount of penance thus performed by him, satisfied that the primary sentence WfiA in itself sufficient both as atonement and example, without reference to any further suffering which he might have to endure. By degrees, in the lapse of years, eircumstances altered, but the law remained the same. Though the tide of free emigration had begun to set towards Australia —though not unfrequent instances ()scarred in whit+ transportation was actually sought as a Weans of hettering the condition of the criminal —though able writers used their pens, and orators lifted up their voices in Parliament, to protest against the continuance of a system of punishment which had manifestly ceased to be effective — still no material change took ',lave in the system until after 18:18, when the subjeet was for the first time investigated before a pat liamentary eommittee. The result. of that committee was that. in 1812. Lord Stanley being Colonial Secretary, considerable mo difications ensued in the condition and discipline of the convict. A period of penal servitude, extending in most eases over several years, and sureeeded by gradual and cantioua relaxation of surveillance, gave reality to the sentence and terror to the punishment. A new principle was hereby recognised. It was treknowledged that exile alone, without the aceompaniments of severe restraint and eOni imisory labour, formed no fitting or adequate retribution for erime, and the simple penalty hitherto imposed became a complex one, in which the new element—that of penal hervi tude—so far preponderated as to throw the others into the shade. For this change, long demanded, and rendered imperatively new's sar,y by circumstances, Lord Grey seems to claim exelusive credit. But the credit or originating it, or rather of recognising the necessity of its adoption, belongs to the Ministry of 18.12 anti not to that of 180. Lord Orey herein merely followed the steps, and carried out, though with some alterations, the designs of his two predeeessors. The princi pal change for which he is really responsible is that by which felons undergoing their bell tence of penal labour are retained at home until the expiration of that part. of their ben tenee. The innovation was objected to—which in England is a matter of course with all innovations—but it hits worked well, and is among the best of Lord Grey's reforms. It. is only just to let him narrate it in his own words : But we thought that experience had shown ample reasons for altering both the mode and pluee of l i nguini's that part of the p 111 l ishment which omelets in subjecting the ofiCsider to forced tallow . . Thu eon 111 l Ate. of the House of Cu on transportation had, in the year Ifs:o4, for very good merlons, illiVirled the discontinuance of the system of assignment. Since that time, the attempt to enforce penal labour en offenders( kept under the charge of edieers of the tioveniment in the colonies hail failed still more el/11104(4. Them was r.,0111 indeed to hope that, guided by the experience gained fr o m that failure, there would he no dittleulty in taking preenutimis that should prevent the reisirrenee of the et ils which had arisen in Van Ifiemen's Lansl, at least in sis 'enameled a bolsi, but still there were inherent diflieultice in carrying into en en tigin a system of penal i tsmrin a remote videny. In such a situation the liovernntant could neither exercise a sufficiently close superintendenee over the working of the system, nor yet eommand with the same faeilny as at home the services of trustwoirthy and energetic sulmardinate officers, on whom the discipline and moves% of a penal establishment ntsiuly depends. There copula be little doubt that, if the large number of convicts in the venal gangs in \'an Diemen 's Land bad been in penal establishments at home, the abuses which grew up would have been far sooner diseovereil and assrreeted, and that the difficulties which anew in getting An efficient staff of officers wo uld not have been experieneed. Hence we considered that much au of the punishment of transportati as ronsists of penal labour +de odd Ile inflicted at lease., or in compara tively neighbouring colonies. It was Win, that for a bug sentenced to transportation had been punished at home, by confinement in the hulks with work in the deekyards, and that the result been the reverse of satisfactory. Ifut, on the other hand, the ever •nt (of the separate syatem at Pentonville had been eminently successful, and there was EVILWIIi to hope that, by inlptv,vemeuts which might Ist in. troduced, convicts, atter going through a perillti of aepanste impriso lit, might he employed on public works, within reach of the constant inspection of the Government, s sil ent the evils which generally attend the congregation fie wither of large lualieiv of men in such circumstances. With these views, it was stated in Sir tit:urge tirey's letter a,. which I have referred, that the punishment of trllllltri it WRPi intendell Of " a 'Milted period of separate :reprisomortit, sureeeded by employment on pothe voila, either ;direful, AS at r idindtar ur at dint aids, or i this country; uud ulfUnstei) . It'll4l"vd