The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-18 00:00:00

ments, in which work was to be found for felons at home,
with the promise of reformation and such instruction as
should enable the felon, when released, to obtain an honest
livelihood. The ticket-of-leave system has been the result
of that change. Now, however, every one is agreed that the
scheme of reformation and ticket-of-leave release from gaol,
with free license to prey upon the community, is an entire
failure. We have had a special commission appointed to
inve tigate this slit ject, and they have recommended a
recurrence to the scheme of transportation to such colonies
as are willing to receive convicts, and, of course, under
such restrictions as will prevent the evils which attended
the unlimited importations of the old regime. Amongst the
colonies which have professed their willingness to receive
convicts in a limited degree is the colony of Western Aus-
tralia, to which shipments ,have already been made, not
in large quantities, but sufLiently to enable the colonists
to judge whether the importation of men of this description
will be a desirable thing for them, or the contrary. Their
feeling has been decidedly calm essed in favour of a large
importation. They want labour, they want public build-
ings, they want roads and bridges, and they see in such an
importation the readiest, if not the only, means of obtaining
all these benefits ; they know also that any expense attend-
ing their reception will be paid by the Imperial Treasury,
to the great benefit of their own produce market. These
considerations have induced the Government to revert to
the scheme of transportation, and to make further
shipments of convicts to Western Australia, and a vessel
is said to be on the point of sailing freighted with a consi-
derable number. Against this measure, however, there is
a howl raised by the party in the old Colonies of Australia,
who, by their representations, procured the abandonment
of the scheme of transportation to them, The question to
be considered is, whether this opposition is warranted and
just, and ought to be acceded to or not. It is said that
Melbourne and Sydney are on the same continent with
Western Australia, and that the influx of a felon population
into the Swan River Settlements will lead to the certainty of
large numbers finding their way, either by escape or after
the expiration of their sentences, into the older colonies,
which have already suffered so much from the predominance
of this felon class in their population. Let us first inquire
whether this reason is sound. It is not pretended that it
will be possible for any convicts to make their way overland
from the Swan River to Melbourne or Sydney ; there are
no roads nor rivers by which communication has been or is
likely to be opened by land for the next hundred years.
But they say that in whalers and coasting eraft the felons
will matte their way to those older Australian colonies,
which, though situated at a distance of several thousand
miles, have yet considerable traffic in this way with the
west. If this argument, however, be allowed weight, what
island or settlement of any kind could be named wtth
which communication by sea with Australia is not
frequent. There is large intercourse between Singapore
and India and our Australian settlements; so between
them and every port end island of the Pacific, evi n
to the Falkland Islands beyond Cape Horn. Is India
to be prohibited from sending convicts to the Andamar s,
and to settlements in the Straits of Malacca, for fear lest
they should find a means of escape in whalers and other
craft to the old settlements of Australia ? The argument is
nonsensical, and partakes to our minds somewhat of the
Monroe doctrine of America, as if, forsooth, Melbourne and
Sydney had a right of domination by inevitable destiny
over the whole continent of Australia; and were eneitted to
prohibit England, even with the concurrence of the
colonies of the west, from adopting a different system
there from that which they approved for themselves. To
our minds, it is conclusive that the reception or non-recep-
tion of convicts in West Australia is a thing to be settled
between the Imperial Government and the people of West-
ern Australia; and that the people of Melbourne and
Sydney have no more to do with that matter than Abe
Lincoln;and his Cabinet have to do with Mexico. But
Sydney and Melbourne have gut free democratical consti-
tutions, and talk loudly, as other free people are in the
habit of doing. They say they will not permit the Govern-
ment of England to make a separate arrangement with its
colonies of Western Australia, and they threaten Heaven-
knows-what consequences if such a thing is thought of.
Whether the soberminded men of discernment in those older
colonies will think the case ono to justify a ,everment from
'Great Britain, and a declaration of independence, having
such a population as they have, and no army of their own
to keep the peace and give them protection, is a question
for their serious consideration. 'We do not suppose that
they mean yet to threaten that issue. But in a recent
letter in the Times there is talk of a project of retaliation
by transporting their own convicts back to England. We
know not to whom this threat is especially addressed, or
whom they expect to influence by it. The colonies could
no more transport a convict by judicial sentence to England,
or to any other colony of England, without previous ar-
rangement and consent, than they could transport felons
to France or Spain; and as for sending back men whose
sentences are expired, and who are therefore free men, we
know of no law which would warrant a compulsory expor-
tation of them if unwilling, or which would prevent them
from coming to us as free men if desirous of so doing,
and believe they are very much iu the habit of doing so.
No man, however, who is still under a judicial sentence
by any British court could venture to show himself in
any place where British Law is administered ; and the
law of England must be much altered in the old colo-
nies of Australia before any one of these could be made
liable to a sentence there of the kind threatened. We
are therefore not disposed to hold these retaliatory threats
of much account, or to think that they are likely to have
any influence in producing a change of the policy which
her Majesty's Government is stated to have deliberately
determined upon.
HERALD.—WhiIe Admiral Kuper is waiting for instruc-
tions from home and expecting reinforcements from China
to arrive in the roads of Kanagawa, the attitude of the
Japanese Government become daily more threatening to-
wards foreigners. We should, perhaps, say the attitude
of one of the Japanese Governments. The whole mind of
Japan has been thrown into a ferment, and the political
system of this people of 30 millions has been shaken to
its foundations by the intrusion of foreigners and the in-
troduction of f uropean ideas. The latest lesson from
abroad by which they have profited is the art of revolu-
tion. There is civil war in the Wand, and a declared
antagonism between the Governments of the spiritual and
temporal Emperors, the Mikado and Tycoon. F, :r ages
the Japanese have gone on quietly with their strange
methoa of an imperium in imperio. The supremacy of
the hereditary ruler has not been disputed by the powerful
commander-in-chief, who has been accustomed to admi-
nister most of the affairs of the country. The truth has
now dawned upon the benighted minds of Mikado and
Tycoon. It has become apparent to them that they re-
present opposite principles, and that they have no choice
but to fight it out, each backed by his supporters, in the
approved fashion of that outer world to which the
Japanese and their rulers have so long been strangers.
The quarrel is a very pretty one, and unless one side
or the othereis disposed to give in, we do not see how it
is to be settled in any other way. The Ja-
penese, we suppose, must set to work to cut each other's
throats till every one of their fertile valleys and breezy
plains has a right to an honourable comparison with the
corpse. strewn battle-fields of that pre-eminently civilised
country, where, because there are also two parties among
them which cannot agree precisely as to certain details of
this civilising work, the nation has set its heart on two
years of fratricide. It is lamentable to think that to the
dreary details of American and Chinese butcheries we shall
now have to record with each mail the progress that another
race is making in self-extermination. The Japanese islands
are fertile and productive to a wondrous extent; their pro-
ducts are varied ; their wealth is prodigious ; they cover an
area of a quarter of a million square miles. Unfortunately
for the Europeans, whose cupidity is excited by contact
with them, there are thirty millions of troublesome natives
on them. But we may spare ourselves all anxiety. We
need not go to war with them, and shoot them down with
Armstrong guns and Enfield rifles. We need not settle
among them and wear them out of the world, as we have
fretted away the native races of America, New Zealand, and
Australia. These poor Japanese seem conscious that they
are in the way, and seem bent upon saving us all trouble
in their behalf. By this time one-half of the nation is
arrayed in arms against the other half. The wars of such
people are endless. Before they have half finished, we may
expect a considerable reduction in the population of Japan.
The Tycoon, or military Emperor, represents the "party
of progress" in Japan. Compared to his antagonist, he is
a mere plebeian without descent or claim to high rank. The
middle class and the merchants are with him, with all those
who wish to profit by commercial intercourse with Europe.
He can only make Saimios of those followers whom he
delights to honour. These are a kind of knights, an in-
ferior order of nobility. The Daimios, or great nobles, are
created by and owe feudal allegiance to the Mikado, who
has his court at Miako, while that of the Tycoon is at Yeddo.
The spiritual Emperor and his followers represent the old
respectability, the aristocracy of Japan. The Daimios are
great landowners, each more or less independent in his
princely domain. The landed interest in Japan and elsewhere
is on the side of the Crown and of conservative institutions.
The aristocratic party have their prejudices. They are all
for the old policy of exclusiveness. They hold in abhor-
rence the treaty concluded with Lord Elgin. They retired
in a body from Yeddo some time since, as a protest against
the radical innovations of the Tycoon, against the party of
the friends of foreigners, and against the European Minis-
ters, whose entrance into the capital was regarded as an in-
famous intrusion. Nor have the nobles confined them-
selves to this moral demonstration. It has been by their
armed retainers that the various outrages upon Europeans
have been committed. It was they who attacked the Bri-
tish embassy and nearly murdered Mr. Oliphant, It was
the Prince of Satsuma by whose orders Mt. Richardson was
butchered. It was in the territories of the Prince of Kewsew
that English and American ships were fired upon some
weeks since, an outrage promptly avenged by the destruc •
tion of the fort. In the strait of Simonasaka, a narrow sea
which separates Nipon, the great island, from the western •
most i land of Kewsew, a Dutch man-of-war has been since
fired upon, by the orders of the same prince, who thinks
himself strong enough to set all Europe at defiance. Na-
gasaki, the most important open port in Japan, is on this
island of Kewsew. What are the English Government to
do in this complicated dilemma ? The Tycoon does not
seem to be at fault, and we cannot get at the Mikado. The
Tycoon has paid the indemnity money for poor Richard-