The Express.
London, England, 1853-08-10 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10.

LORD PALMERSTON last night favoured the Houk
of Commons with the present views of the Govern-
ment upon Transportation. The whole speech was
a clever commentary upon the preamble of the Bill
upon which the House was then in committee, and
which is known by the name of the Transportation
Bill. " Whereas," say the words of the preamble,
"by reason of the difficulty of transporting offenders
beyond the seas, it has become expedient to substi-
tute in certain cases other punishment in lieu of trans-
portation, be it therefore enacted, &c." Whence
' arises the difficulty of transportation beyond the
seas which gives occasion for a change in our legis-
lation ? Lord PALMERSTON gave but an imperfect
solution of this difficulty when he ascribed it primarily
to the altered state of the colonies to which crimi-
nals were transported. " These colonies," he said,
"to which hitherto our offenders had been tran-
sported, had become thriving and wealthy com-
munities, and their feelings had led them to
revolt against being, as they conceived, made
the receptacles of criminals who were deemed unfit
to be left in the mother country." Surely the objec-
tion of colonies to receive convicts has a better
foundation than sentimental squeamishness. It
is not because their pride or vanity is in-
-1 jured that the colonies protest against receiving
convicts, but because the presence amongst them of a
large body of men steeped in crime is at-
tended with the greatest danger to life, pro-
perty, and morals. The whole tone of IRO-
rality in a convict colony is lowered. The tenure
of life and property is insecure. Precisely the same
reasons which influence the mother country in trying
to get rid of its convicts, make a colony unwilling to
receive them. Whether criminals may bo subjected
to a discipline which will end in their reformation,

is a petition which still remains to be decided. At
present the cartes of reformation are too few to allow
01 oar indulging in ye:ly largo hopes of ►uch a
welt. 'foe man wl.o enters a gaol as a convicted
burgtar, ur highway robber, or swindler, or violator
of any of the chief decencies of life, generally comes
cut again without any change in those feelings which
induced him to perpetrate the crimes of which he was
found guilty. Damaged in character, soured in
tower, with no honest means of getting a living,
it i 4 a nnruele if he does not return to his old
courses. Ile has seldom any other resource. Coun-
tries that have no facilities for transports-
Van t xperience the full effects of this. A
urge proportion of the crimes which come before
public tribunals in ehow count:les are committed by
returned convicts. Th..e men ate at war with so-
ciety. Ilia they make society pay the expenses of the
wadi,, or course, colonies feel these evils as
acutely as the ntuther country ; and hence, and not
bum any sentimentalistu, arises the deep-grounded
inersion which has manifested itself in many of our
ciao ial puseessions against the reception of convicts.
This feeling the mother country is bound to re-
aped; Lut she may at the taunt time consult her own
interests also. And there does not seem any reason
,by En.4lAnd, which has greater facilities for trans-
portation titan any other country in the world, should
sot be u'. e to devise means for getting rid of her
crautur.s without irtlietiug upon the country to
which the criminals are transported any discomfort
is not countertralanetsl by the benefits the
country may receive by the convict labour. At
sty rate, as lung rts any colony is willing to
rectivv convicts, the Guvernment of the mother
country is justified in transporting criminals there.
At present, Western Australia is desirous of receiv-
ing tne benefit of convict labour; and there is no
reason why our convicts should not be transported
thither in such numbers as the colony is able to
abort.

Lund I'.sLususr"N's argument against the fuun-
datam of new penal colonies derived its whole force
flew looking exclusively upon the reformation of
the criminal as the great er.l of punishment.
But society has its own interests to con-
sul: as well as those of the criminal. Let us do all
we can to transform our convicts into honest la-
bourers ; but, at the same time, let us protect our-
0, against the possible misdeeds of the convicts
who ntu.•e to be reformed. The use of trausporta-
tion, according to Lord l'Aust.thsroN, has been that
it atforis an opportunity to tho convict to make a
grailu-I change in his habit', and thus to prepare
the uay for his gradual absorption into
the ucw community of which ho be-
comes a member. If we establish new
penal settlements, ho observed, there will be
no free community to which the enlarged convict
tau attach himself. lie would have to be set free as
a freeman in a colony of convicts, which is objec-
tionable. Probably ; but that is no sufficient reason
why he is to be cast loose upon the society which has
wisely banished him from its pale. And then
Lord VAUD:IO37ON only talks of difficulty of finding
new cohnits. But these difficulties are not intim._
mountable. The reformation of a criminal is a most
legitimate object, but the protection of society from the
criminal's evil practices is a paramount duty. Even
then, although the criminal's chance of being re-
formed in an exclusively penal colony should be
shown to be insignificantly small, still this ought not
to be set against the safety which the community
whine laws he has violated enjoys from his absence.
His crimes ought not to invest him with such claims
to our consideration, that we should neglect mea-
sures for our own protection. From oecr.kindliness
to the criminal, do not let us injure the honest.
Proper treatment of Juvenile Offenders will largely
diminish our criminal classes, but for inveterate evil-
doers we must find penal settlements.
The plan of penal servitude which it is proposed
to adopt, in lieu of transportation, for all periods less
than fourteen years, is, as far as it can be under-
stood, judiciously contrived, but, for the reasons above
stated, it is only to be considered advisable upon the
supposition that no more penal colonies can be estab-
lished satisfactorily—that no more places of trans-
portation are open to us. If this can be shown, then
employment upon public works is as good a method
of making use of our criminals as can be devised.
It, however, has the one great defect, that the cri-
minal, after having served his time of imprisonment,
is let loose with a brand upon him, in the
midst of a society which has punished him, and
which is always regarding him with suspicion. He
has none of the facilities for meeting with employ-
ment which he would find in a new country where
the labour market is overstocked. His endeavour to
become an honest man will be attended with great,
and in many eases insuperable, difficulties, and he
will be practically necessitated to return, in the
majority of cases, to his old courses. If, therefore,
our present colonies object, as they have a per-
fect right to do, to the reception of convicts,
oar regard to the criminal u well as respect for
ourselves should inditee us to seek for other places
of transportation, and not retain in the country
those who have shown no respect for its laws. The
vast extent of our possessions renders that easy for
as which would be difficult or impossible for many
other nations, and by a proper selection of such spots
we should afford better chances of reformation to our
convicts, and of safety to ourselves.

IF we are a Natioset f3hopkeepers,—as continental
report still occasionally declares us to be,—we do not
manage our affairs so skilfully as might be expected.
If we are a nation of philosophers,--as some of as are
trying to imagine and give ont,—we have marvel-
lously little to show in the way of theory to account
for some of our strange conduct. Bat, looking at
the late cab catastrophe in a typical light, and at
the present array of strikes, and at the exasperating
uncertainty the nation is in about peace or war, and
at the way our representatives are managing our and
their business in this month of August, it is pretty clear
that we neither have our business well in hand, like
shopkeepers, nor know where we are, and what we
would be at, like philosophers. The fact is, we are
living in a transitional age, when, events being ap-
parently desultory, conduct is from hand to mouth.
The world's arrangements are provisional; and the
behaviour of mankind is of an impromptu character;
and this is the state of things in England as else-
where. We ought to know by this time, however,
that under all appearances of confusion there are
great natural laws at work, in society as much as
among the stars and in the interior of the globe. The
peitical economists tell us this; and, though the
truth does not seem to be very fertile in their hands.
society is obliged to them for their assertion and
proof of the fact. We want now something
more than the assertion and proof of the fact. We
want to know how we should act in conformity
with it. For instance, we need to understand what
to expect, and what to do in the present state of the
labonr•market, and the present temper of the
labouring classes. Here is the Stockport strike—at
an end, certainly, for a time and in a manner, but
to nobody's satisfaction. The employers are as
sure of their ground as ever, but yield to the im-
position of certain loss, to avoid the greater lees of
locking up their machinery nod other capital; while
the operatives have forfeited tens of thousands of
pounds, and cannot recover the position they held
three months since under two years of full
work on the advanced terms they have gained:

I and, if those terms really impose loss on the
employers, of course they are not likely to
lust two years. The discomfort and loss caused
by the cab strike needs no furthil description. Tiede,
which was already audering seriously from the un-
certainty about peace or war, is farther injured by
strikes among dock labourers in London, Liverpool,
and elsewhere. Strong bodies of police are neces-
sary to keep the peace wherever these strikes take
place : but, then, the police arc striking. Bodies of
these trained guardians of public order are throwing
up office, or giving notice of their intention to do so.
Miners, shipwrights, carpet-weavers, corkcutters,
and many more, have turned out between the Laud's
End and the Tweed. The poorly-fed Suffolk farm
labourers have got an extra 6d. a week amidst the
turmoil, and probably everybody wishes it were ten
times as much ; and in the south of Ireland the rail-
way labourers have 10a. instead of Bs., which is all
very well. 1

The formidable part of the case of general disturb-
ance of this kind is, that the parties most nearly
concerned seem quite unconscious of the causes of
their own action. All the turn-outs plead the dear-
ness of provisions; the employers point to a time
when provisions were dearer, and men had the same
wages, or lower; the men are not ready with a
reply, and the employers think they have settled the
whole business. This is, however, b 4) far from being
the case, that herein lies the chief peril of the mis-
understanding. The truth of the case lies very
much deeper; and there can be no thorough settle-
ment, no security of harmonious social action, till it
is brought to light. And how is this to be done?
In a general way, we know and are all saving,
that the condition of the labour market is changed,
and still changing daily. We are all talking of the
blessings of increased commerce, of improving agri-
culture, of abundance of food, a general ability to buy
it—all consequent on Free Trade. We talk of the prodi-
gious introduction of money, at the precise time when
the operation of Free Trude made it most desirable. We
talk of the emigration which has lightened the bur-
den of Ireland to our hearts and our exchequer at
once, and which is daily transforming our home
labourers into colonial customers. We hear accounts
of grumbling workhouse matrons, who have to hire

washerwomen and window-cleaners, and bribe old
men to pump ; and we see the curious change of
manners in villages and country towns, where the
gentry, who used to dispense employment as cha-
rity, have now to wait their turn to get served.
Some of us are enjoying the spectacle of this turn-
ing of the tables; while others point to the evils
that are arising from it in the increase of some
personal vices and the alarming and disgust-
ing frequency of offences against the person.
There seems to be no doubt that where
large bodies of workmen are congregated, drunk-
enness has much inci eased, and with it crimes of pas-
sion of all kinds. Mr. Furzaoit's Act for the better
protection of women and children from brutal vio-
lence is a sign of the times, bath in its existence and
in its inadequacy. All these things we see because,
having eyes, we cannot but see them. The question
is whether we sec—even dimly, as those classes
themselves feel it—what lies below and behind.

We believe our prosperity to be sound, and there-
fore likely to be permanent—not even at the mercy
of war. Under the pall of the last great war,
national life was moving and growing, and prepara-
tion was making for subsequent improvement of
every kind; and no war can ever again overtake us
at such disadvantage, or so operate on our national
welfare. If oar industry could not be destroyed
then, it cannot be fatally trammelled now. There
will be no surplusage of labour in Great Britain
during this century, whether we have peace of war, and
the social position of the labouring classes may be re-
garded as permanently changed. Now, the question is
whether we—either as tradesmen or philosophers—
have made, or are making, any political provision
for this very serious change ? The case of the cab-
men ought to be full of instruction and warning to
us, and the more because the cabbies are so far from
being a fair representation of the British journey.
men. They find their wages fixed (implicitly) by
Act of Parliament, and that they have no represen-
tation there ; and the restlessness caused by this
state of things has extended, and is extending be-
yond their own body to orders of men who have no
other sympathy with them than in the sense of poli-
tical helplessness. There is, perhaps, no fact at this
moment occupying a larger space in the popular
mind than this—that the cabmen and.the police
have alarmed society by showing what a power of
social inconvenience they hold for use in the absence

of political rights.
The Reform Bill which the Ministers are going to
prepare during the recess must not be what it would
have been if prepared five years ago. The talk that
goes on in political reviews, in clubs and coteries and
parties, and even in the House, is much like what it
was five years since among the gentry who have
finality in their minds, consciously or unconsciously,
while they disavow it in words. We hear much the
same propositions and controversies as formerly about
the basis of representation being numbers or pro-
perty, or classes, or intelligence,—or some, or all, of
these. Whatever theory of representation the
Coalition Ministry may decide upon advocating, they
must not for a moment lose sight of the altera-
tions in the state of society even since they
pulped their promise of a Reform Bill for
next session. They must open their minds wide to
the spectacle of a labouring class rising in import-
ance while lessening in numbers, gathering about
them a larger and a larger share of social interests;
accumulating property by millions in Savings Banks,
in Freehold Land and other societies; paying taxes
more extensively ; and, finally, becoming more inte-
rested in the theory and facts of political govern-
ment, and their own relation to it. No one denies
that a large share of the intelligence and virtue of
the country is found in that class; and what we
assert is that we must have all the intelligence and
virtue of the country represented in Parliament, and
that no Reform measure will now suffice that is not
prepared under a deep sense of the improving
position of the labouring classes, and of their
rights in relation to the National Council.
We care not what theoretical controversies
may be going on u to the head under which they
are to be brought ; whether numbers, collective pro-
perty, class or intelligence. If it is fairly granted
that their interests are to be represented under some
head or another, the mode will be settled by discus-
sion, as usual. The first thing requisite is that the
labouring claims should be as important in the eyes
of statesmen as they are in the daily experience of
I every other order of men in the country—from the
landlord or cotton lord to the humble shopkeeper.
Both as shopkeepers and philosophers, we are
bound to institute reform in another direction. The
new Bill, if worth anything, will introduce new busi-
ness without, we suppose, an increased number of
members to do it ; at any rate, without
any considerable augmentation of the na-
tional council. Yet, we cannot now get our
business done; and the present outrageous mis-
I management, late hours, and waste of time and
strength must be amended. Whether it be done by
I more permanent committees, or other distribution of
r' labour—by an additional short session—by a change
I in the Parliamentary session—by any or all of these
methods, or by any not yet suggested, the thing has
to be done, as everybody is saying ; and the time for

I doing it seems to be when changes are to be intro-
duced into the constitution of Parliament, which
must involve more or less change in the nature and
amount of its busitiesa. As it is, a large part of the
nation is affronted by exclusion from a hearing in
Parliament; and a larger part by their inability to
get their business done when there. Every man of
business, and every reasoner in the country, sees
that the time is come for both evils to be fairly taken
in hand, and that the New Reform Bill offers the fit
occasion.