The Press. — London, England, 1856-12-20 00:00:00

DECEMBER 20, 1856. pore! classes, and others, to whose circum stances a payment in cash is more suitable than a payment by cheque on the Bank of England. We have now laid before our readers as con cisely as possible, and necessarily in an im perfect form, a general outline of the actual information which is derivable from the inquiry of last session. As we observed at the commencement, throughout the whole of the examination the antagonism between two important public departments is painfully perceptible; and the altercations which in some instances took place, together with the spirit of attack and defence upon which it has been our duty to animadvert, have rendered the evidence less clear and instructive and useful than under other circumstances we should have found it, coming from persons of the high position and great experience of all the witnesses. It remains for us to com ment upon the inferences which the public will draw from the inquiry, upon the defects in the present administration of the public monies, and upon the plans which have been proposed for remedying those defects. TICKETS OF LEAVE AND TRANS PORTATION. SeFFICIENT evidence is, in our opinion, already in existence to enable us to place the discus sion of this question upon a tolerably broad basis. The increase in crimes of violence has been concurrent with the retention of our cri minals at home; and the number of cases in which such crimes have been brought home to released convicts is quite sufficient to dispel any notion that it is merely an unaccountable coincidence. The scientific gentleman in " Pickwick," who was made a member of various learned societies on account of the highly eru dite manner in which he explained the result of an electric shock on his own person, which was, in fact, nothing but an ordinary black•eye inflicted by the human fist, was hardly more sapient than those wiseacres who deny that the murders and robberies with which the past twelvemonth has been rife have anything to do with the bludgeon and centre-bit of the " ticket-of-leave." Assuming this connection, then, it seems to us that the question for discussion is not whe ther we have rightly carried out the proposed substitute for transportation, but whether that substitute was not in itself a blunder. No way of working it could do away with the broad fact that it keeps the disease amongst us, which transportation effectually removes. The ill blood still remains in the system, and cir culates through the veins of society. The point of this argument can neither be turned aside nor evaded. There is the nuisance before our very eyes, under our very nose, or whatever other popular hyperbole may best express close and undeniable proximity. And all which the advocates of the system can do is to admit that, though it may be worse for the honest population of this country, it is better both for the criminal himself and also for our own colonies. That is to say, that there is two to one in its favour. The first of these positions admits, we think, of easy dis proof; and the second of such modifications as will leave it very little weight in the discus sion. We arc almost tired of repeating, that the further you remove the criminal from his old associates, the better chance he has Of reformation—that the wilder and freer is the country to which he is removed, the better chance he has of procuring an honest liveli hood ; and that there is a class of criminals, of whom Marley was probably one, whom active rural employment is nearly certain to reform, and whom the life of cities is almost equally certain to make worse ; that at home, on the other hand, nobody will employ a jail bird while honest labour can be had, and that thus old temptations and new wants unite to lead him back into crime. In regard to the colonies themselves, we have never affected to say that we should force our convicts up on suc h settlements as Sidney and Melbourne now are. The question 18, are we not justified in founding other tirw THE PRESS. settlements, such as Sidney and Melbourne once were? Is not, indeed, the very condi tion of these two places the best argument for doing so? Is not the fact that they have become so prosperous and cultivated as to repudiate our convicts, a pretty good proof that they could not have suffered much harm from receiving them? If, therefore, in recommend ing a return to transportation we confine our selves to the establishment of new penal settlements, we think the last-named argu ment fairly falls to the ground, and that thus the whole case of the advocates of tickets of leave is disposed of. Of course, it is still open to those who hold different opinions to challenge us to find suitable localities for these establishments. That, however, is a mere question of physical fact, about which it is useless to wrangle. We would only observe that it is marvellously strange if we cannot do with our vast colonial empire what countries like France and Russia manage to accomplish. Each is provided with an outlet for her diseased members. Shall England alone, with no boundaries but the ocean, be without one? But suppose, it is said, that your new penal island is discovered; that you have a place with a thin population, and plenty of natural advantages—such, for instance, as Vancouver's Island. What then? If you transport your criminal for a term of years, he returns upon your hands as bad as he went out ; and if you transport him for life, you might just as well keep him locked up in a penal prison at home. The fallacy of this argument lies in the assumption that ho would return upon our hands. We believe, if a proper selection of criminals were made, that not one in ten would desire to return where he would feel a relapse to be inevitable. Independently of which feeling, if we take into account the thousand accidents that may always prevent a man coming back from so distant a country, we shall see that this argument is not worth the prominence which has been assigned to it. But we have arguments to adduce from fact as well as from theory. Did our criminals invariably return from Australia? We know that such return was the exception, not the rule. Both fact and theory, then, are against this view of the sub ject, and still appear to leave untouched the broad ground on which we advocate the change,—namely, the removal of crime from amongst us. In conclusion, we will merely repeat what we urged in our article last week, that in case of new penal colonies being established, per sons who do not like the neighbourhood of crime are not obliged to go to them ; but that, if they do so, they must accept the conditions on which they are founded, and not demand that Government shall give up to them a settlement founded at great expense for a spe cial and well-known purpose. INCOME TAX. WE remarked in our last publication that the country was beginning to bestir itself on the subject of the war portion of the income tax. Several very important meetings have been held during the present week in this country, and the metropolitan county has led the way in the expression of opinion in Ireland. The meeting there was a public one of the county, convened by the High Sheriff.'The requisition,. as stated by Mr. HAMILTON, one of the county members, was signed by 87 out of 130 magis trates, 15 of the remainder being absent on the Continent. The meeting, attended by persons of all parties, came •to the following resolutions, supported by speeches which even the Times is forced to confess were moderate and sen• sible : 1. That the income and property tax, even in its original shape, when imposed for the first time in 1853, fell with peculiar pressure upon the people of Ireland, and that its increase from 7d. to Is. 4d., however justifiable by the necessities of war, becomes impolitic, unnecessary, and unjustifiable upon the restoration of peace. 2. That the very conditions upon which the increase was granted in 1854, presupposed its discontinuance, as 1203 soon as practicable, after the termination of war, the Act of 1854 declaring that " the increase was to continue in force during the war, and until the sth of April next after the ratification of a definitive Treaty of Peace, and no longer," and that, according to the provision of that Act, the increase would cease on the sth of April, 1857. 3. That its further extension in the Act of 18.55 by the introduction of the words, " until the 6th of April after the expiration of one year from the ratification of a definite Treaty of Peace," thereby in the present case extending it virtually to more than two years from the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace, which took place on the 30th March, 1836, is unjust and impolitic, and compre hends more than a year beyond the period usually limited the case of war taxes. We have quoted these resolutions, because they place the whole ease accurately and con cisely before our readers, and because they are such—with the exception of the first, which relates to the peculiar case of Ireland—as may he usefully copied by the meetings which are likely to take place on the subject in this country. EDUCATION PROSPECTS. WHETHER anything will be really " done " by Parliament in the next session► on " Educa tion," seems doubtful. The subject in many quarters is discussed anxiously, and there is a strong contrast between the eagerness of some interests, and the apathy of others. That there will be able and eloquent debating on it may be assumed; and there has been in the course of the last few weeks much writing put forward on the whole subject. We think it necessary to caution the friends of education against the fallacy of appealing to Ireland on this most important subject. The difficulty which they have to solve is to provide a system that will work well for England. The social and political circum stances of Ireland are entirely different from those existing in our long-settled society; and it must be remembered, in candour, that the " National Education System " of Ireland does not receive the support of the Established Church in that country. The Times, in the course of the current week, has printed at full length the late pastoral address of Arch bishop CULLEN, and that prelate boasts that though the " National System" is theoretically a " united " one, yet that in working the schools are virtually under the control of the priests in the south of Ireland, where the Roman Catholics predominate, and of the Presbyterians in the north. Although Archbishop CULLEN uses this fact for the purpose of drawing from it an exagge rated inference, yet we must be on our guard against supposing that, because a joint system was established in Ireland in 1831, it is similarly easy to carry one out in England. The sudden and prodigious growth of the towns in the north of England, and the enormous numbers of the Dissenters of various denominations, their commercial wealth, along with their electoral influence, constitute the great difficulties of the case. These diffi culties must be considered from au English point of view, and references to the case of Ireland will, we fear, give little help in ap- proximating to a positive system on this great subject. THE WAR WITH PERSIA. THE progress of this "little war" excites a great deal of attention, not only in England, but through out Europe. The capture of Herat by the Persians is now confirmed ; and should Persia determine to retain possession of the post, a frontier war appears inevitable. That preparations are being made in India in anticipation of such an event is confirmed in some measure by the fact that vast quantities of ammunition are being conveyed to, and stored at, Moultan ; that certain regiments are under orders for the Affghan frontier, and that negotiations are being pressed with Dost Mohamed for a combined move ment against Herat. A proclamation of war has been issued by the Governor-General declaring war against Persia for the violation of the treaty of 1853, an 1 a counter proclamation, it is said, has been issued by Persia, accepting the war. The British expedition in the