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

TRANSPOMATION.

TRANSPORTATION is all open lineation in the
Cabinet—Lord ANERDERN desiring its perpe-
tuity, and the Duke of NEWCASTLR aiming at
itK extinction—a dimerepimey of opinion mama

iugly illustrated in the debate which took
place HOMO time in the mouth of May last.
But, though unable to agree, Government is
compelled to legislate ; and accordingly we
have a bill which is neither one thing nor the
other, founded on compromise, framed in
haste, submitted to the Legislature almost
without• explanation, and the introduction of
which has caused our Ministerial contempo-
rary to comment in no measured tempt on thin
incapacity of the Minister who had it iu charge.
The provisions of this measure, briefly
stated, are these :—Transportation to Western
Australia is to continue, but only in the ease
of convicts sentenced fin• life, or for periods
exeeeding fourteen years. Transportation to all
other colonies to .ease ; and, in place thereof;
tenns of " penal servitude," or imprisonment
accompanied with labour on public works, to
be substituted in the ratio of four years to
seven years of transportation, six years in lien
of ten, eight in lien of fifteen, and ten as the
maximum in any ease. It is caleulated that
Western Australia can receive about. 8(H) eon.
victs annually ; and that number will in fitted('
not be execeded. No estimate of probable
expense is furnished, nor are any detsds sup-
plied as to the natl•e of the works on which
criminals are to be employed, trite
el under
4 which 11111.:fy:m.ta.,,rot,(; ►e token to keep them
the population. All the
71.7.:.1!‘.%),‘"5%11;14..L0n tells 11M is, that they " eau
" be sent to separate confinement, and set to
" work at any ylace her NIAJEBTY may think fit
" to direct, either in or out of the United
" Kingdom, "—a sentence which, if it accurately
deseribes the provisions of the ennetmeut,
places in the hands of the Executive a power•
greater than Parliament has ever yet ecwented

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 could 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
/744
: kl--14hgeRi went amounting almost to entire
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unto' It' -- • "
tk.,i,":. a \‘..mz.
fr fre ~um *gest that a larger number of
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.tie c'elnicz.e,_ 411 lint at present contemplated
Ityk.- eibuild lst".4 ' to the Australian colonies.
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