The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-09 00:00:00

Sir John Bowring on Convict Labour.

At the Devon Sessions, Sir John Bowring brought
before the magistrates the subject of the employ-
ment of convicts on remunerative labour. Prison
labour, he said; could never be so remunerative as
that resulting from the energies and appliances of
freedom, but he Would call attention to statistics of
the good done and profit attained by prison labour,
all of the statistics being of an, official character
supplied to him by favour of foreign Governments
or individuals who were amongst the best informed
upon the topics. In France the plan of abso-
lute isolation of prisoners by day was- aban-
doned in 1848, and a classified system of em-
ployment was introduced. In all the central
and departmental prisons, the areas were
turned into workshops, and with some modifica-
tions the arrangements which had been successfully
carried out in the United States prisons—and in
which the re-committals were not 6 per cent.—were
adopted, and the system gradually extended to the
sale of the productions of the prisoners to contrac-
tors, under the prison regulations. Upon the intro-
duction of the contract system the yearly receipts
from that source derived from the 19 central prisons
was 12,0001. per annum ; in 1862 it was 47,0001.,
and the profit from the whole of that year amounted
to no less a sum than 121,0001. (Applause.) Of
this sum, proportions varying from one tenth to
six tenths were allowed to different classes of pri-
soners—a portion of the sum having been distri-
buted amongst them during their confinement, and
the rest having been allowed to accumulate, was
handed to them at the time of their liberation. As
far as practicable the convicts were employed at the
trades to which they had been brought up. Saddlers
returned the greatest profit, the next most profit-
able were the shoemakers, then the tailors, basket-
makers, matmakers, and the stone cutters, and
weavers. In a report lately made to the French
Legislature by M. Jules Simon it was stated that
under the beneficent influences of the new system
the number of prisoners had diminished one half,
and that in one of the Departments (that of the
Basses Alpes) the prison had twice been without -a
single occupant. (Hear.) He had received from the
Belgian authorities official statistics directly bearing
on the question of productive prison labour, and
which furnished models worthy of imitation. The
tariff of wages allowed to prisoners on work done
in the central prisons showed that the State received
five tenths of the profits 'from prisoners subjected to
correctional or minor punishments ; six tenths
from soldiers condemned to solitary confinement ;
and seven tenths from convicts condemned to hard
labour for long periods. A portion not exceeding
two tenths of the value of their daily labour might
be paid to them weekly, and the balance went to a
fund to be handed to them on release, so that if
they knew a trade they were put to it ; if not, they
were taught a trade, and no person, therefore, need
not leave a prison without means of support. (Ap-
plause.) As regarded the importance of re-
munerative prison labour a body of commissioners
who reported upon it to the Belgian House of
Representatives expressed a most decided opinion
that it was a powerful and needful agent in
reforming criminals, that it checked re-committals,
and provided against misery, and they quoted ap-
provingly the words of M. Berenger to the French
Chamber of Peers, that " whatever be the character
of the imprisonment to which a criminal is con-
demned labour must be the basis of all moral im-
provement, and its employment a necessity from
which it is impossible to escape." The report stated
that the produce of the labour on an average of three
years was 16,3501., of which more than three-fourths
was work for the army or for the use of the prisons.
The six central prisons of Belgium left a profit
from labour of 20,0001., of which 1,6001. was dis-
tributed in rewards. (Hear, hear.) The maximum
term required for learning the trade of shoemaking
was 12 months, weaving six months, tailoring
three months, (Hear, hear.) In a return to the
Minister of Justice, giving the receipts and
expenditure of the Antwerp prison, in which all the
convicts were employed in manufacturing stuffs for
exportation, it was shown that in 12 years the quan-
tity produced was to the value of 400,0001.—the
greater part of the productions were made of raw
materials, the growth of Belgium, and of which the
native agricultural industry had the benefit ; and
the report prided itself on the fact that the capital of
remote nations had thus contributed to the reform
of Belgian criminals and to the finance of the Bel-
gian state. :The return for the period named
exhibited a net profit of 29,4001., being an annual
average of 1,4504 For the last year it had been
3,2401. The ,number of prisoners was 1,295.
This remarkable document stated that the
.improvements introduced into the Antwerp
prison had been of the greatest service to
the linen manufacture of the whole country,
leading to new arrangements which had been most
beneficial to the labouring people, and that the re-
putation which the prison manufacturers had ob-
tained in foreign countries had been reflected over
other Belgian producers of the same articles, added
to which every convict before leaving the prison had
acquired the means of maintaining himself respect-
ably and honourably when his term of imprisonment
expired. The learned knight then spoke of the pri-
sons of Switzerland and of Spain, which:gave a pro-
fit per head, and furnished an instance of 2,355 pri-
soners having been taught in a Spanish gaol
to earn a honest livelihood ; forty work-
shops had been erected there without cost
to the Government by the labour of the
prisoners. An English traveller, Mr. Hoskins,
called the -result " a miracle," and inquired why
similar experiments were not carried out in this
country. The want was co-operation on the part
lof the Government. Then as to Scotland, the
general report of the managers of Scotch prisons in
1864 showed that there were 2,176 prisoners main-
tained at a cost of 241.65. per head, whose earnings
were 21. 19s. 9d., reducing the net cost to 211. 6s. 3d.
The evidence given before the Parliamentary Com-
mittee of 1850 was then referred to as having
shown that useful and productive labour had
been pronounced to be " the main element of
any sound reformatory system," an opinion "in
which every writer of consequence concurred."
Millbank Penitentiary and Pentonville were
also cited as illustrations of the advisability
of extending the productive labour system
throughout the gaols of the kingdom. At Millbank,
with 770 prisoners, there was a net annual profit of
3,7601. Some of those who worked at trades gained
an average of ls. 7d. per day, while those who picked
only averaged a halfpenny per day in their gains.
Before the Parliamentary Committee a project was
brought up by Mr.. C. Pearson, solicitor to the Cor-
poration of London, a man of great ability and long
practical experience in the field of prison discipline,
recommending agricultural labour as one of the most
efficient means of reform for the criminal. He showed
that 1,000 acres might be made to support 1,000 con-
victs, and to leave a considerable margin of profit.
The general results of European experience were
that convict agricultural labour in the field was on
the whole more profitable than manufacturing. The
farm of the Dartmoor prison, although the year was
an .unfavourable one, paid 1,8821. 2s. Bd. to the
general fund. The Bavarian Government had esta-
blished five agricultural and industrial prisons,
whose working was spoken of as most satisfactory,
and as having produced a considerable diminution
of re-committals. (Hear.) The prison of Kate
Vain, Thurgovia, received the va,ga.boanidi sitsofexmpoesitnoesf
the adjacent Swiss cantons, and paid
by the produce of labour, without any State assist-
anceibur ; and in the canton of Frg, the profits of
labour amounted to 2001.
from Inlo
inTne enprtisotnhesrs—of
that is 101. per head, more
which were produced by labour open air.

FROM AMERIC.

MAIL STEAMERS DUE _A THIS
WEEK.—The following steamers are due at Liver-
pool this week with the American and Canadian mails, viz.,
the Kangaroo, North American, and Africa. The two
former steamers were to leave, the first New York on De-
cember 31, and the second Portland on the same date, and
may be expected, the Kangaroo off Crookhaven or Queens-
town in the course of Wednesday night or Thursday morn-
ing next, and the North American off Greencastle on Wed-
nesday next. On Saturday next the Africa, from Boston
on the 4th January, and Halifax early on the morning of
the 6th, may be expected to reach Crookhaven or Queens-
town,