The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-11 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS—(YESTERDAY.)
The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the woolsack
at fire o'clock.

COUNTY COURTS.

On the motion of Lord BROUGHAM, certain returns
were ordered connected with the expenses of proceedings
in County Courts.

TRANSPORTATION.

Earl GREY then rose to move, that an humble ad-
dress be presented to her Majesty, praying that her
Majesty will be graciously pleased to give directions that
the arrangements with respect to the punishment of cri-
minals sentenced to transportation, which were in force in
the year 1852, may not be changed in such a manner as
to prevent the ultimate removal of such offenders from
this country until a full account of any contemplated al-
teration in the above arrangements shall have been laid
before Parliament, and the Parliament have had an op-
portunity of considering the measures it may be in-
tended to adopt previously to their being carried into
execution. He said he did not bring forward the motion
in any spirit of hostility to the Government. The ques-
tion of secondary punishment never had, and he trusted
never would be considered with any reference to party
politics. It was not his object by this motion to enable
their lordships to pronounce a judgment on the question
of transportation, or to call upon them to say that
it should or should not be continued, but to ask
that an address be presented to her Majesty, re-
questing her to command that no vital change should be
made in that system of punishment which had existed
for two centuries in this country until their lordships and
the other house of Parliament had been made acquainted
with the measures proposed to be adopted, and had an
opportunity of pronouncing an opinion upon them. The
noble earl entered into a history of the policy of pre-
ceding Governments on the subject of transportation,
and expressing his surprise at the course taken by the
present Government, said it was inconsistent with the
spirit of the law that while transportation remained on
the statute-book as the principal punishment, it was in
point of fact and in point of law to be repealed. " Hear,
hear," from Lord Campbell.) He begged to call atten-
tion to what had taken place within a few years, and
which he thought had a material bearing on the subject,
and made it more disrespectful to Parliament to take the
course which the Government had adopted than it other-
wise might have been. Some years ago a measure was
adopted by the Government by which transportation to
New South Wales was at once put an end to by an
order in council. He knew the difficulty to which the
noble earl opposite was exposed by that measure. (Hear,
hear.) It was intended that the number of convicts not
transported should be continually increased ; but an ad-
dress was moved in the Houle of Commons praying that
her Majesty would not allow-the number of convicts not
transported to be so increased, and that was carried
against the Government of Lord Melbourne. The house
of Commons, therefore, declaredxthat it was inexpedient
to discontinue sending convicts%abroad ; and they had
never since expressed any other opinion, although during
the Government of Lord John Rifssell various attempts
had been made to obtain a contrary opinion from the
House of Commons on the subject. ,No decision revers-
ing that of 1840 was ever adopted, by the House of
Commons. Therefore, so far as the other house was
concerned, it remained on record as the opinion of that
house, that the ultimate removal of convicts sentenced
to transportation from this country might not to be
discontinued. How was it with ,vegard to this
house ? In the year 1846 it became necessary that a
great change should be made in the arrangements for
carrying into effect the sentence of transportation,
and, after much consideration, the Government of
which he (Earl Grey) was a member decided upon cer-
tain measures which were proposed for the purpose
' of improving the mode of effecting this punishment. As
soon as these measures had been decided upon, papers
containing a full explanation of the views of her
Majesty's then Government were laid before Parliament,
for its consideration. Now, although these measures
did not imply any discontinuance of the ultimate re-
moval of convicts from this country—on the contrary,
it was an essential part of the plan that convicts sen-
tenced to transportation should, as heretofore, be re-
moved to a distance before their discharge—yet very
considerable alarm was excited in this and the other
house of Parliament when they were announced. A
noble and learned friend (Lord Brougham) moved a
committee of their lordships's house, and the then Go-
vernment assented to its appointment. That committee
investigated the subject, examined all the judges of Eng-
land except one then recently appointed, and almost all
the judges of Scotland and Ireland. [Lord Brougham
—All the criminal law judges.] They examined the
magistrates and governors of prisons—all persons who
had the greatest practical experience of the working of
the law. After that examination the committee reported.
and stated "that nearly all those whom they had exa-
mined, had agreed that the punishment of transportation
could not safely be abandoned, and that it had terrors
which no other punishment—death only excepted—pos-
sessed." That committee reported further, " That the
evidence, both from France and elsewhere abroad, of
the fatal effects produced by the liberation of crimi-
nals at the end of their terms of imprisonment,
would seem strongly to show the necessity for con-
tinuing the present mode of transportation." They
went on to state, as the result of all their inquiries,
—and ho (Earl Grey) might say here that the
committee was very numerously attended—" that their
opinion was, that the punishment of transportation
should be retained for serious offences; that such punish-
ment should be carried into effect in some instances im-
mediately, in others, at later periods ; that the first
stages of punishment, whether in this country or in the
colonies, should be of a reformatory as well as of a pe-
nal character ; and that the later stages should, in all
instances, be carried into effect in the colonies, the con-
vict being for that purpose retained in the qualified re-
straint to which, under the then existent system of trans-
portation, men holding tickets of leave or conditional
pardons were subject." Such was the opinion of the
committee. No vote was come to upon the subject in
the house, and for this reason, that it was understood
that her Majesty's Government should carry into effect
the views of that committee. The Government did so
act ; 'at the same time, much valuable information was
derived from the colony, and upon that, and the facts
collected by the committee, after very careful considera-
tion, a scheme for the future management of convicts
was matured. .A. full account of that scheme was em-
bodied in various dispatches, which, almost as soon as
written, were laid upon the tables of both houses of
Parliament. It was only two years ago, in moving the
second reading of the Convicts' Prisons Bill, he (Earl
Grey) had occasion to explain to their lordships the prin-
ciple and objects of the measures then decided upon. He
would, therefore, not weary the house by going over
what he had so lately fully entered upon, but would
content himself with reminding their lordships that this
plan was, with one modification, precisely the same as
that determined upon in the year 1846. The principle
of the plan was that the more severe portion of this
punishment consequent upon the !sentence of trans-
portation should be inflicted upon criminals in the
country, that they should be subjected to different
kinds of imprisonment under the best schemes that
could be devised, and that, after having under-
gone punishment of this kind, they should be removed
to the colonies, being still placed in a state of modified
subjection for some time. It was at first intended that
they should have conditional pardons, the effect of which
was that they would be free upon arriving at the colony,
except that they were restrained from returning to this
country, It was afterwards determined that they should
be sent out with tickets of leave only, by which means
they were still kept under a certain degree of control.
That measure he (Earl Grey) would take upon himself
to say had since been in very successful operation. It
had answered both as a deterring and as a reformatory
punishment. Now, he would submit to their lordships
that, considering the circumstances under which that
scheme of punishment was adopted, considering that it
was in successful operation, they ought not to have
abandoned lightly and without a substitute, an essential

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as a deterring, and still more as a reformatory punish-
ment.countryvas He said that an involuntary exile was a deter-
ring part of the plan upon the authority of the evidence
given before the committee. He knew he might be told,
as the house was told not long since, that this had been
entirely changed by the recent discovery of gold in Aus-
tralia ; but he must confess that he heard that argument
with complete astonishment. In the first place, he de-
nied the fact that the recent discoveries of gold had in
any way impaired the efficacy of transportation. He
would refer to his noble and learned friend behind
him (Lord Campbell), who had stated that upon
recent circuits he had found the punishment of
transportation as much dreaded as ever. Since
he (Earl Grey) had given notice of this motion, it had
been communicated to him by the chaplain of one of
the prisons, that there was no part of the sentence of
transportation so much dreaded as the ultimate exile ;
that he found convicts, imprisoned after sentence, al-
ways desirous of having this part of their sentence com-
muted ; and that even within the last few weeks he had
had three instances of that kind. And upon considera-
tion their lordships would see that the discovery of gold
could not affect the question. Under the regulations
lately in force a convict sentenced to transportation
must have waited a period of from 5 to 10 or 12 years,
or even longer, before he could expect to be at liberty
to go to the diggings. Even a seven years' convict,
though his conduct might have been exemplary from
the day of his conviction, must have waited 3& years
before he could go to the gold fields. Of that 31 years,
one must have been spent in the gloomy seclusion of
Pentonville, another in the severe toil and labour of
Portland. Now, remembering what convicts were,
could they be supposed to act upon any principle of de-
liberate reason ? Did a man pick a pocket because,
after due consideration, he had come to the decision
that he ought to do so ? Crimes were generally com-
mitted because those who committed them did not
reason, and, not reasoning, did not possess sufficient
strength of mind to resist temptation. Were these the
men, then, to commit crime for the sake of being trans-
ported, in order that, at the end of 10, or 12, or 15
years, after undergoing a punishment of awful severity,
they might be at liberty to take their chance with other
scramblers for gold at the diggings ? The notion was
so utterly irrational that he (Earl Grey) was convinced
that no noble lord would attempt to assert it. He did
not deny that there might be men who had given
as a reason for their crimes that they wanted to go to
the digging. He knew that in 1830 he had had letters
from criminals stating that they had committed
crimes for the purpose of being transported. There
were not wanting in the records of our criminal courts
cases of persons who had incurred the penalty, even of
death, from a morb:d desire to undergo punishment.
But taking mankind as a body, he believed that trail-