The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

SATURDAY REVIEW.—We are willing to hope that
the Royal Commission just appointed to inquire
into the operation of the Penal Servitude Acts may
be meant to be something better than an excuse for
wasting time and shirking responsibility. It may
be presumed that a prominent subject of the Com-
missioners' inquiries will be the expediency of re-
curring to transportation as our principal secondary
punishment. This is a question on which it is of
the first importance that people should come as soon
as possible to a clear, definite, and well-considered
conclusion. There is an immense floating mass of
conflicting opinion and authority on this matter
which it is exceedingly desirable to fix and disen-
tangle. Though there is a very general agreement,
among those best entitled to be heard, in favour of
returning to transportation, and though it may be
suspected that its loudest opponents really object
to it as interfering with their pet projects of prison
philanthropy, it has other opponents whose argu-
ments claim the fullest consideration. When, in
one and the same week, we have heard two such
Judges as Baron Bramwell and Justice Byles pro-
pound from the Bench diametrically opposite views
of the value of transportation as a punishment, it
must be well worth while to ascertain which of
them is in the right. It is persistently asserted, by
one set of authorities, that there is nothing (next
to hanging) which criminals dread half so much as
being sent out of the country ; and it is also asserted,
by another set of authorities, that they do not mind
it the least in the world, but merely look on a com-
pulsory trip to the Antipodes as a sort of " assisted
emigration" to the diggings. One would much
like to know which of these views is the nearest to
the troth. And then, if transportation is ruled to
be a good punishment, for what class of criminals
is it good ? Are we to get rid of the worst and
most hardened of our convicts by shipping them off
where they will never vex honest men's eyes again?
Or, as some suggest, are we merely to look to trans-
portation as a means of giving a fresh start in life
to offenders who are still young in crime, and who
may possibly, under altered circumstances, become
decent members of society ? The two objects,
though not perhaps necessarily incompatible, are
perfectly distinct, and would have to be worked out
under totally different conditions and by totally
different instrumentalities. Again,if transportation,
in one or both of these forms, is desirable, the ques-
tion remaine, Is it feasible P Have we any colonies,
other than Western Australia, that are willing to li
take our convicts P and, if so, with what restric-
tions and limitations ? Or is it practicable to found
new penal settlements in the remoter corners of our
Empire without the risk of reviving the horrors
and abominations of Norfolk Island ? What are
we to think of the Falkland Islands, for instance,
as the seat of a new and model convict colony ? Or
what of the singular project of setting up a British
Siberia in the wilds of Labrador P On these and
a score of such questions, which may be debated
for ever in a desultory way by newspaper corre-
spondents without any rational result, it would be
satisfactory to have the responsible and well-
weighed judgment of a Royal Commission.
SPECTATOR.—The notion of a war with England
is founded, in Mr. Seward's mind, on the
possibility that a country so proverbially perfidious
may wish to take advantage of any serious reverses
to the Northern cause. "None such, however,"
says the Secretary of State, writing on the 2d of
last August, " have as yet occurred." Oh, Mr.
Seward, what a bounee ! The expression is alto-
gether undiplomatic and undignified, but it is
really extorted from one. Bull's Run nothing—
the campaign before Richmond nothing ? But as
e are often told that everything in America is on
a larger scale than in Europe—rivers, trees, plains,
and—bounces—so, it is to be presumed, aro mili-
tary reverses too. To be serious, defeats must be
on a scale quite unusual here. One is curious to
know whether an Austerlitz or a Leipzig would be
up to the mark in America. Ridiculous in reality
that sanguinary struggle can never be, on whose
issue it depends whether millions of men are to be
regarded as of reasonable soul, or as the beasts
which perish; but whatever can be done to make
it so, Mr. Seward may congratuiate himself on
having done.

But after all he is a great pacificator. If he con-
templates war, it is under protest as it were, and
"for ninety days" only. The prospect is soon too
much for him, and he " willingly turns from the
spectacle of servile war and war abroad—of mili-
tary devastation on land, and of a carnival of public
and private cupidity on the seas—to set down with
calmness some reflections." However, as a matter
of fact, he proceeds to ask a great many questions.
What Lord Russell said to them is not yet known,
but most people wilt find them terrible puzzlers.
The Civil Service Commissioners on spelling are
nothing to Mr. Seward. He wants to know for
what America was " brought up, as it were, from
the depths of what before had been known as the
dark and stormy ocean ?" Have the European
States ever understood or accepted its real destiny
and purposes? After near four hundred years
of disappointments and disasters, " is the way of
Providence with regard to America still so myste-
rious that it cannot be understood and confessed ?"
France has lost her transatlantic possessions ; so has
Spain. The larger part even of England's colonies
have revolted from her: "To whom have these vast
dominions been resigned . but to American na-