The Press.
London, England, 1857-01-03 00:00:00

THE CONVICT QUESTION.

THAT a return to the system of transportation
would be the most effectual method of check-
ing the fearful increase of crime in this country
seems now to be so generally admitted, that it
would be a waste of time to recapitulate our
arguments in its favour. The question which
has next to bo settled is, whether a return to
that system, under such conditions as are ad-
mitted to be necessary, is any longer possible.
The opponents of such a course endeavour to
reduce its advocates to the following dilemma.
If, say they, you only mean by transportation
a recurrence to the system of Norfolk Island,
that Nrould be just as well carried out at home.
What is the difference between a wall of water
and a wall of brick ? There is plenty of work
to be done in this country, upon which convicts
could be advantageously employer!; and you
would thus save the expense of their deporta-
tion, and profit by the use of their labour. If,
on the other hand, new penal settlements are
to be established, on the same plan as those of
Australia and the Cape of Good Hope, you can-
not, in the first place, find any suitable locality;
and if you could, it would be impossible to pre-
serve it as a penal settlement. Thus, of the
two kinds of transportation, the purely penal
kind is said to be unnecessary, and the mixed
or reformatory kind impossible. This, we
think, is a tolerably fair statement of the case
against us.
Now, as we ourselves are quite as adverse to
the renewal of the Norfolk Island system as
the most sanguine and merciful of philanthro-
pists can possibly be, we should not have noticed
the arguments brought against it did they not
contain in its most naked form what we con-
ceive to be the fundamental error of the anti-
transportationists. What is the difference
between a wall of water and a wall of bricks ?
Why, exactly the difference between having
our criminals as part of our own population,
and not having them so. If any man believes
that a body of convicts confined in some prison
upon English soil, and daily led out to work
in the open country, would not exercise more
influence upon the population at large than if
they were two thousand miles away, we can-
not argue with him. The disease would still
be amongst us—collected to a head certainly,
but still there—and the chances of infection
consequently existing along with it. We must
consider, moreover, that in the one case all
the felons whose term of imprisonment had
expired would be disgorged upon this country;
while, on the other, that probably not one-
tenth would ever return to molest us.
Thirdly, we have the old argument—but
not because old less valid—that we should
thereby be interfering with the wages of the
honest labourer. It is, however, on the two
former arguments that we lay the most stress.
The cancer, we say, must be fairly cut out
the infected parts of the body politic effectually
removed; and for the accomplishment of this
end we scarcely think any price too dear.

JANUARY 3, 1857.

The possibility of finding suitable localities
for new penal settlements, and the further
possibility of keeping them so when found, are
indeed most deeply interesting and important
questions. There are, doubtless, difficulties
in the way of giving a perfectly satisfactory
answer to them, yet not, we hope, such as
patient inquiry may prove unable to dispel.
As regards the locality itself, we can only say
that a great number of places have recently
been brought before the public, out of which
it is surely not too much to expect that sonic
might be found suitable. That any one should
be free from all possible objections is, of course
a hopeless idea. It would be sufficient to
require a certain combination of advan•
tapes with an absence of all objection to our
own occupation of the territory. The site should
be at a certain distance from any civilised
part of the world ; the soil sufficiently fertile
to repay agricultural labour ; and the limits
sufficiently extensive to enable discharged
prisoners to settle there permanently. It
should not be sufficiently attractive to
encourage a large immigration from this
country, nor sufficiently the reverse, to repel
it altogether. It is desirable, as Reeorder
HILL has observed, that there should be an
honest population into which the convicts
should gradually be absorbed; and it is
desirable, on the other hand, that this popula-
tion should be kept as long as possible within
such proportions as would prevent them
from claiming the colony for themselves alone.

It seems to us that the Falkland Islands
would answer most of these requirements;
they are decidedly unexceptionable as far as
size, remoteness, and facility of occupation is
concerned, and we believe there are many other
islands in the Pacific Ocean or in the Indian
Archipelago that would answer almost
equally well. We cannot doubt, then,
that if Government took up the matter seri-
ously, and ordered an official survey, the result
would be the discovery of at least one, if not
more localities on which we might discharge
our felon population without any impediment
whatever.

It is not likely that, with Canada, Australia,
and the Cape of Good Hope before them,
English emigrants would crowd to the Falk- !
land Islands in such numbers as to alter its
character as a penal colony. That it should in
time develop itself into something different
is a result not to be deprecated, but de-
sired. But if we have provided for the dis-
posal of our criminals for two or three genera-
tions to come, we ought surely to be satisfied.
We are not bound to look so very far forward.
" Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof ;"
and, indeed, the condition of the whole civil-
ized world a hundred years hence may be
something so totally different from what it is
now, that we may conscientiously relieve our-
selves from the necessity of prospective legis-
lation. Reformatory schools and the spread
of education on the one hand, and the changes
of territory and fluctuations of empire on the
other, may have brought about a state of things
in which the problem which is now so formid-
able may no longer prove perplexing. We say,
then, that if there is any reasonable probability
that the system of transportation can be pro-
longed for another century, we are bound not
to reject the benefit thereby accruing to the
British race during that period, because we
cannot exactly say what is to be done at the
end of it.
What would have been the condition of this
country at the present day, if, since the year
1737, all our convict population had been re
tained at home? No process has yet been
discovered, save hanging, by which we can
consume our own convicts as we consume our
own smoke. If we would not be stifled with
crime, some outlet must be found.

THE KING OF PIEDMONT, while out on a sporting
excursion a few days ago, having become separated
from his suite, was stopped by a party of robbers
who demanded his purse. " But am the King," was
the royal reply ; to which the robbers answered, " We
know that very well, and it is precisely for you that
we were waiting here." The wood being solitary and
the suito at a distance, his Majesty was obliged to
yield compliance, and held out to the robbers a purse
containing twenty gold Napoleons, which was re-
ceived with marks of the greatest respect.

THE PRESS.

THE BOMBARDMENT OF' CANTON.
THE late intelligence from China is of unusual
importance. Canton has been bombarded by the

British squadron, all trade is stopped, and it was
officially announced by the British Consulate on the

15th November that there was " no immediate pro-
spect of the restoration of quiet."
The real origin of this outbreak of hostilities
appears to be the desire of the British authorities to
obtain the due execution of a promise, long made

and delayed by the Chinese Government, to admit
the English officials within the city of Canton. The

ostensible cause of the affair would appear to be a

very justifiable act on the part of the Chinese au-

thorities.

In the month of October last a lorcha, the Arrow,
was lying at anchor off Canton. It appears that, for
some time, smuggling in salt has been carried on to
a great extent. The Arrow was suspected of being
engaged in such contraband trade, and it coming to
the ears of the Chinese authorities that certain no-
torious pirates were among the crew, the local police
were ordered to arrest the entire crew and subject
them to examination. On the Bth of October this
was carried into effect ; the crew were arrested and
taken before the Imperial Viceroy Yeh. The legality
of this act depended entirely upon the point at issue,
viz., the nationality of the vessel.
The Chinese, declare that the Arrow was not
a foreign vessel, that she was built, owned, and
employed by a Chinese, that her crew were Chi-
nese, and that, though possessing a British colonial
register and flying the British flag, they have evidence
to prove that the one was dishonestly obtained and
the other temporarily purchased for the mere purpose
of smuggling with impunity. On the other hand,
the British authorities declare that before leaving
Hong Kong the Arrow had duly obtained at that
port, as she was entitled to do, a British colonial
register, and henceforth to all intents and purposes
she became a British vessel. Be this as it may, on
the Bth of October the local marine police proceeded
on board the vessel, arrested the entire crew, and,
according to our consul, Mr. Parkes's, account,
hauled down the British colours then flying at the
masthead. This act the Chinese Commissioner, Yeh,
denies, on the authority of the crew themselves and
on the custom of the place. He writes to Sir Michael
Seymour, in a despatch of the 31st Oct.:—
It has been the invariable rule with lorchas of your
Excellency's nation to haul down the flag when they drop
anchor, and to hoist it again when they get underway.
When this lorcha was boarded in order that the prisoners
might be seized, it has been satisfactorily proved that no
flag was flying. How, then, could the flag be hauled
down? Yet Consul Parkes in one despatch after another
pretends that satisfaction is required for the insult offered
to the flag.
And again on the 2nd of November
No foreign flag was seen by my Executive at the time of
the capture ; and as, in addition to this, it was ascertained
on the examination of the prisoners that the lorcha was in
no respect a foreign vessel, I maintain that there was no
mistake committed.
However, Mr. Parkes, when informed of the arrest
of the crew, at once took the matter warmly up,
proceeded to board the lorcha, and remonstrated
with the Mandarin officer left in charge. It is
reported that the officer insulted and even threatened
him with violence. Mr. Parkes then instantly com•
municated with the British authorities at Hong Kong,
and wrote to the Governor Yeh, complaining of the
whole proceeding as an open infraction of the ninth
article of the Supplementary Treaty between Eng-
land and China, according to the terms of which the
Governor, having any complaint to make respecting
parties under the protection of the British flag, is
bound in the first instance to communicate with
the British Consul. The Consul further de-
manded that the whole of the men seized should
be publicly restored to the vessel. Governor
Yeh replied that the lorcha was not a foreign
vessel, but he sent back nine of the men, retaining
only the two who had, on the preliminary examina-
tion before him, been identified as the parties impli-
cated in the imputed acts of piracy, and the witness
whose evidence was necesssry to their ultimate con-
viction. This did not satisfy Mr. Parkes, who
refused to receive the men; and on the lath he again
wrote, " demanding," to use his own words, " besides
restoration of the whole number, a letter of apology
for their seizure, and assurance that nothing of the
kind should occur again—to be given within forty-
eight hours." Of this letter Yea took no notice.
On the 18th, after communicating with Sir John
Bowriog at Hong Kong, the screw corvette En-
counter, 14 guns, and the steam sloop Sampson, 6,
upon Mr. Parkes's suggestion, arrived in the
Canton river, with a large force of marines and
blue jackets. Tho steam sloop Barracouta fol-
lowed with further detachments, with Admiral
Seymour on board, anti who proceeded direct to
Canton, and hod an interview with Mr. Parkes. The
British and other traders were then officially warned of

the posture of affairs, and commercial transactions,
which for a week before had been little more than
nominal, were suspended.
On the 21st Oct. Mr. Parkes despatched a
final letter, demanding the public return of the
whole of the crew, and an apology for the insult
to the British flag, within twenty-four hours.
On the 22nd Governor Yeh wrote to Consul
Parkes, and at the same time forwarded to him
twelve men—namely Leong-Minglai and Leong-kee-
foo, convicted on the inquiry he had instituted, and
the witness, Woo Ayen, together with nine men pre-
viously tendered, but Consul Parkes would neither
receive the twelve prisoners nor the letter, on the
plea that the men sent were not the same as those
seized, and so he at once put the matter into
the hands of the British admiral, Sir Michael Sey
mour. The admiral then demanded of Governor

Yeh redress and apology and a salute of twenty-one
guns to the British flag, and gave the Viceroy twenty-
four hours further to consider the course he was

pursuing, warning being given that should he
still refuse compliance, coercive measures would be
adopted. Yeh, however, made no satisfactory reply,
the tone of his communications, we learn, being any-

thing but apologetic.
Negotiations failing, on the 23rd of October, the
barrier forts at the mouth of the river were stormed,
and taken by our seamen and marines without
loss, the Chinese offering but a poor resistance.
Guns were spiked and taken to the number of 437.
Some of the forts were burnt, while others were held
by cur marines and a detachment of the Royal
Artillery, sent up from Hong Kong under the com-
mand of Captain Rotton, P..A. A body of 100 marines
was also landed to protect the factories. Two days
were now allowed to elapse in the hope that Yeh
would give in, and acknowledge himself in the wrong.
No signs of surrender being made, on the 27th,
11.M.5. Barracouta and Encounter ascended the
river, which is here rather broader than the Thames
at London-bridge, though with not more than
two fathoms depth of water, and threw shot and
shell into Governor Yeh's palace, and into the
encampment of troops outside the city. On the
28th and 29th the bombardment was continued and
directed against the famous city wall. About 1.30
p.m. on the 29th, a breach having been made, a
party of marines and blue jackets were landed, and
with very little opposition entered the city, and took
possession of the Governor's palace. Sir Michael
Seymour soon followed, and having promenaded
round the apartments of the palace, the troops were
withdrawn with the loss of five killed, and one officer
and thirteen men wounded. The bombardment set
tire to a certain portion of the town, and destroyed
thirty-six out of thirty-eight of the Chin-chew and
Fokien Hongs, with an enormous amount of valuable
property.
Further attempts at negotiation were then made.
Anlenvoy despatched on the 29th by Governor Yelt
to ascertain what the demands of Sir Michael
Seymour were, was informed that a right of access
to the Chinese authorities within the city of Canton
for foreign representatives, was a sine qud non. On
the 30th Sir Michael despatched a letter to Yeh
embodying these demands, and insisting upon a per-
sonal interview in order to settle difficulties.
To this, Yeh on the 31st. replied by a summary of
the whole case of the Arrow, maintaining his ground
that the vessel was not de facto a British vessel, and
that, according to custom, no colours were flying at
the time of the arrest of the crew, who had since
been liberated but refused by Mr. Parkes, and con-
cluding :
In reference to the admission into the city, I must ob-
serve that in April, 1849, his Excellency the Plenipotentiary
Bonham issued a public notice at the factories here to the
effect that he thereby prohit•ited foreigners from entering
the city. The notice was inserted in the newspapers of the
time, and will, I presume, have been read by your
Excellency. Add to this that the exclusion of foreigners
from the city is by unanimous vote of the whole population
of Canton, and it may be supposed how little to their liking
has been this storming of the forts and this destruction of
their dwellings, and, apprehensive as I am that evil may
hence befall the officials and citizens of your Excellency's
nation, I can suggest nothing better than a continued
adherence to the policy of the Plenipotentiary Bonham as
the best course to be pursued. As to the consultation
(proposed by your Excellency ), I have already, some days
ago, deputed Tseang, prefect of Luy-chow-foo. I accor-
dingly reply, availing myself of the occasion to wish your
Excellency prosperity, &c.
On the 2nd of November Admiral Seymour replit d
that he was perfectly satisfied of the facts of the Arrow
case, as represented by Mr. Consul Parkes, that the
demand for the removal of the prohibition of
foreigners from entering Canton had nothing to do
with former negotiations, that the demand was only
made on behalf of foreign officials, and that it was
made inthe belief that it was the sole security against
a recurrence of any future misunderstandings
like the present. To this letter no reply was
returned, and it was then resolved to attack
ti ,inner, or Mantchou portion of the city, di-
vided from the southern by a high massive stone
wall, and containing the garrison of Canton. This