The Press.
London, England, 1857-06-06 00:00:00

546

and in lieu of those charges, as made down to
the year 1848; the following grants have since
been substituted :

1856.

General Superintendence 16,783
Government Prisons and Convict Establish.
ments at Home
Maintenance of Prisoners in County Gaols
and Bethlehem Hospitals
Expenses of Transportation 25,48.5
Convict Establishments in the Colonies

X 906,374
So that the positive increase on this charge,
contrasting Convict Expenditure of 1848 with
1858, stands at the annual sum of 428,843?. !

But the relative increase is infinitely greater,
for the expenditure has gone on in a double
ratio. We are not only to recollect that there
has been an increase since 1848, but we must
observe that there was decrease prior to that
year. For example, the Convict Expenditure
for New South \Vales and Van Diemen's Land
stood thus :-
1844
1845
1846
1847
There the expenditure fell within four years
at a decrease of 100,0001. Now look at the
increasing expenditure upon our convict estab-
lishments at home:-
1849
1850

1851

1852

1853

1854
1855
1856
A Treasury subordinate, with the habitual
superciliousness of his caste, might exclaim,
Well, but the convict establishments in the
" colonies have been decreasing." To which
we reply that the returns prove exactly the
reverse. For example, the returns for convict
establishments in {the colonies (chargeable to
Miscellaneous Estimates) stand thus :

1849
1850
1801

X 013,08.4

Contrast these items with the charges under
the same head for the last three years :-
1851
18.55
18.)6

£926,928
Thus, while there was a decrease in the Convict
Expenditure prior to IS-19, there has been an
enormous increase in the Convict Expenditure,
both at home and in the colonies, since that
year.

But now let us advance to a higher intellec-
tual atmosphere than that of mere statistics.
Let us ascend from numerical to moral calcu-
lations ; let us change the consideration of this
most important theme from mere money, and
look upon it from the point of public morals.
Whig orators and writers, when engaged in
casting ridicule on their adversaries, are
fond of recurring to the illustration of "an
ingenious foreigner " visiting our shores, and
rhetorically making the distinguished stranger
utter exclamations of philosophical surprise.
We shall here suppose a continental educe-
tioninonger, of the best Berlin pattern, taking
up these returns, and with the profound look
of a German commentator he would say " that
" the English people are not versed in social
" psychology ;" and, falling back on philoso-
phical nomenclature, darkening the air with
ponderous " dictionary words," the " intelli-
gent foreigner " might deliver a prelection, of
which the purport would be that "if the Eng-
" lish people were to spend their money on
" eduzation, they would have to pay less
" for their convicts ;" and he would deliver a
series of showy generalisations, which might
captivate the minds of crude and theoretical
Whigs.

But, unfortunately for the soundness of the
theory which would make the expenditure on
convicts decrease in proportion to the public
money invested in public education, it appears
that we have been spending the money on that
head in the following rate :

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