The Express.
London, England, 1849-03-29 00:00:00

THE FXPRESS; THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 29, 1849.

Acd thereby public men and public opinion would
be enabled m dieting ,i,h at once between tbomt inter-
national delimitations and relations, wl kb were na-
tural:remittable, and fair, and tbote being
founded on violence and °premien could be expected
to endure no longer than tte strength of arm and
obstinacy of will that enforced them.

Turas is nothing so common with our implant
leAidatore, as to spend the lab cur of one y. ar in un-
doing what was done the scar before, meleng laws
with precipitate p.s4, ri at first, then repenting, and
amending them at lerare. This was the only jour-
nal, which exclaimed at the time against the unfair-
ness and absurdity of oonfouoding political crimes
with the meaner and more heioons ones, blinded with
the name of felony. We said at the time
that no law could make either the prisoners or the
public confound such offences, or consider them in the
Jame category; end that the law, by doing this, was
merely putting itself in contravention et h genital
opinion, and defeating its best aims. Sech tibjectione
as there were scouted at the time. Parliament pro.
seeded to treat Irish repealers aa ban Moos and
passed slaw which neither government ter its dicers
could bring themselves to execute. In fact, bons
Wrenn., though c mdemnel as a felon, was not
trmted as one. British officers would not so demean
themselves as to be ungenerous. And the felon law
for conspiracy, pealed in name, became from the first
a dead-letter In reality.
The trouble and incongruity of a solitary case
era, however, slight. But at the resent mo-
ment we have thousands of prisoners to deal
with. The usual annual number of transport-
able cases in Ireland being six or seven bemired,
there were 2,000 additional CAM last year. These
additional crimes were evidently the pre:duce either
of political excitement and aberration, or of the irre-
sistible impulse to steal food in a season of famine.
Surely none of these men, however worthy of pu-
nishment, deserved to be mark. d with that brand
which was to prevent them, at the expitation of their
confinement, from mingling once more with their
class of fellow-men. The Irish traitor, escaped to
America, adores the bar, if an educated man—
beoomes a thriving trader and egriculturist,
if of humbler life. Why should the colonial depen-
dencies of the crown be deprived of scch energies?
The protest of the inhabitants of the Caps of Good
Hope against the importation of emancipated Jelons
is natural. Bat how s:upid and unjust to raise colo-
nial horror end aversion of men who really do not
meat it, by condemning es felons men guilty of
another specie of crime.
Talk of the classification of criminals—very just
and very rrecessary. But let not the task of classi-
fication to left exclusively to gaolers. Trust not to them
to discriminate, whilst you m:suse the law and its ex-
pressions to confound and misrepresent. Let the Lew,
the.proaecutlon, the judge, the jury, show some pre-
liannary fsitness and discretion, instead of huddling
into one deck and into one prison the traitor, labour-
ing under monomania, the stealer of a turnip to
satisfy the cravings of hunger, and the hardened pro-
fese.onal robber. Of t::.e 2,000 supplementary Irish
convicts of 1848, there are full two-thirds
who, if not crowded and contaminated after
conviction, might be an aegulaition to any colony.
Nor should they have ever been placed in a category
which precludes their return to society, remote from
the peculiar temptations and remembrance of home,
and in a land where the soil with the materialsand
the reward of industry afford all the elements of
moral and well regulated life to the good-iatentioned.
Unfortunately there is on this aeon most sub-
jects too much advocacy in parliament and too little
argument. One gentleman gets up to represent and
flatter the opinions of the colonists, another to ana-
thematise treason, a third to abuse the Irish, a fourth
to be their spokesman, a fifth to make a hit at Lord
Gary, whilst the sixth is of course an official to defend
him. But, in the midst of all this, the pasionate in-
justice of the law, the difficulties which in the case of
transportation it has flung in its own way, and the
necessity of carrying out and prejudging the great
problems of secondary punishment, are totally for-
gotten.
With respect to convicts, the result stems to be,
that the people of England will not have them at
home, and that the colonies will not have them
abroad. Economy and the plainer motives of hu-
manity and morals offer objections insurmountable in
the way of an exclusively penal colony, such as
North Australia. So that, in fact, we shall be driven
to the prevention of crime by eke übbyluld
lily of dealing with any great mass of condemned,
and then to measures for reforming and purifying, so
as to render emancipated convicts aceeptAge under
some designation or another to the colonies. It is a
good rule that the wishes of the colonists are to be
consulted; in this the colonial office has shown a wise
and liberal deference.

Bat all these circumstances only demonstrate the
necessity of proceeding constantly and zealously with
the experiment for which Lord GREY has made pre-
parations. Whether Lord STANLEY be tight or
wrong, protectionist and Peelite ought in fairness and
patriotism to cease making this a party question, as
Lord MAHON did in his recent speech. We are
always boasting of the fixity of monarchical institu-
tions, and the continued uccertainty of republican
ones. But the fact is, that in all such questions as
these, the democratic assemblies of America steadily
pursue the same aim of improvement, without being
led aside by party quarrels, whilst we, with all our
legality and fixity, are continually tampering,
haggling, and unsettling, never allowing even a fair
experiment to be made, so impatient are the STAR-
LETS, and the LINCOLNEL and the other candidate
cocks for office to pick each other's e yes out, and get
possession of the miniediried dunghill.