The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-09-11 00:00:00

SELECT COMMITTEE ON TRANSPOR-

TATION.

The following are the resolutions of the Select Com-
mittee on Tran,portation which sat last session :-
1. Thit the punishment of transportation is more
effectnal and deterring, better adopted for the ultimate
reformation of convicts, and more beneficial to this
country than any other secondary punishment for seri-
OU3 crimes Which has yet been tried)

That the committee, therefore, recommend the con-
tinuation of the sentence of transportation, so far as her
Majesty's dotninions may afford safe and proper facilities
for that purpose.

3. That if such facilities can be obtained, sentences Of
ten years' transportation should be revived.

4. That convict prisons beyond the seas ought to be
regarded as places for carrying out the sentence of trans-
portation.

5. That every punishment by penal servitude should
include—first, a certain fixed period of imprisonment
and hard labour on public works to be undergone, at all
events ; secondly, a further period, which should be
capable of being abridged by the good conduct of the
convict himself.

6. That, with a view to give full effect to this principle,
the sentence of penal servitude prescribed by the act
should be changed and lengthened, so as to be identical
with the terms of transportation for which they are
respectively substituted.

7. That the sentences of penal servitude now in force
might be adopted with some few changes as the fixed
periods indicated in resolution 5.

8. That the hulk system, which appears by the evidence
to be already in a great measure relinquished, should be
finally abandoned with as little delay as possible.
9. That the scale of secondary punishment would be
more complete if a shorter period of penal servitude than
any now in force were enacted as an intermediate sentence
between the present term of ordinary imprisonment now
usually indicted and the former sentence of seven years'
transportation, or its equivalent.

10: That the system-of licenses to be at large, or tickets
of leave, authorised by section 9 of the act, has been too
short a time in operation in this country to enable the
committee to form a clear and decided opinion either as
to the effects which it has already produced or as to itt
probable ultimate working.

11. That the system appears to be founded upon a
principle wise and just in itself—viz. that of enabling
the convict to obtain by continual good conduct, while
undergoing his punishment, the remission of a portion
of his sentence, upon the express condition, however,
that in case of subsequent misconduct his liability to
punishment shall revive for the residue of the term
specified in the original sentence.
12. That it spears from the evidence before the com-
mittee that bad effects upon the discipline of convicts on
the public works have already been caused by the regu-
lations, under which it has been made known that no
tickets of leave or other remission of sentence would
in any case be granted to men sentenced to penal
servitude.

13. That there has been much of misapprehension and
exaggeration with regard to the conduct of persons
released upon tickets of leave, who have been frequently
confounded, even by several of the witnesses in this
enquiry, under one common designation of ticket-of-
leave men, with convicts whose sentences have fully and
absolutely expired.
14. That there is reason to believe that the conduct of
a large proportion of the whole number of persons dis-
charged upon tickets of leave has hitherto been good,
and that in other cases persons so discharged have
relapsed into crime from the difficulty, arising from
their former characters becoming known, of procuring
or retaining honest employment in this country—a
difficulty, however, which obviously applies to all
persons once convicted, whether discharged upon tickets
of leave or absolutely at the expiration of their sentence.
15. That to render this system of good conduct
licenses adapted both for the reformation of offenders
and the interests of the public, the conditions endorsed
on the license ought to be enforced more strictly than
appears to have been hitherto the case.

16. That every convict, on his release with a good
conduct license, ought to be reported to the police of
the town or district to which he is sent.

17. That full idormation on the regulations affecting
persons under sentence of transportation or penal servi-
tude should from time to time be furnished by the Home
Office to the judges, recorders, and chairmen of quarter
sessions.