The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-10 00:00:00

that all members of that house would be anxious so to
shape the bill as best to attain the objects which it had
in view. (Bear, hear.)
Mr. COLLIER said both the Secretary of State and the
right here gentleman opposite had placed the question on
its true footing : what were they to do with their dangerous
convicts—with that class of criminals whom their ancestors
disposed of summarily by hanging, whom we had been in
the habit of transporting, bat, inasmuch as public opinion
was against transportation, we were able to do nothing with.
In considering this question, they must not lose sight of
two things : what they were desirous of doing in the ab-
stract, and what they were capable of doing. In the first
place, the question arose what was to be done with the
worst class of criminals who ought to have been hung but
had not, who ought to have been convicted of murder,
whereas they had been convicted of manslaughter, because
the juries who tried them had an objection to hanging, or
men who had been convicted over and over again of gross
personal violence and perhaps had escaped by accident. It
seemed to him there was one thing to do with regard to that
class of criminals, and that was permanently to exclude
them from society. They must regard the interest of
society rather than that of the criminal. The public should
be protected from violence rather than the criminal should
have a chance of reformation. If, then, it were conceded
that hardened criminals must be excluded from society,
the question next arose—should that be done at home or
abroad 7 The right hon. baronet (Sir J. Pakington) thought
it should be abroad. Now, there were two senses in which
they might speak of transportation ; in one of which it
was admitted on all hands to have succeeded, but in the
other it was equally admitted to have failed. In the one
sense, transportation meant the conveyance of criminals to
colonies where the free settlers largely preponderated,
where there was a lerge demand for labour, and where the
colonists were willing to employ COLIN ids. That kind of
transportation obviousy required conditions which it was
not always in the power of the Government to supply.
The other kind of transportation contemplated the estab-
lishment of purely penal settlements—such as Norfolk
Island ; and it was that kind of transpoitation which was
admitted to have signally failed. The mother country had
no right to transport, in the first sense, the hardened cri-
minals of which he was speaking. They had no more right
to turn persons of that class loose in the colonies than they
had at home. Such persons were enemies of the community,
and the Legislature had no right to suffer them to prey on
society anywhere. That being conceded, the only question
that remained was, would you keep criminals of that class
in prisons at home or in prisons abroad—for a purely penal
colony was, to all intents and purposes, a prison abroad ?
He (Mr. Collier) thought that all the arguments were in
favour of keeping our dangerous criminals at home. In the
first place, by that course they would save the expense of
sending the man out. In the next, they would have a better
class of officers at home than they could have abroad. In
the next place, the Home-office would be able to exercise a
stricter surveillance over a convict establishment at home
than would be possible if placed at a distance. In fact it
was utterly impossible that such atrocities could take place
in this country as had been perpetrated in Norfolk Island.
Lastly, there were means of usefully employing,the labour
of convicts at home which wore wanting abroad. There
were, for instance, vast tracts of land on Dartmoor which
might be reclaimed, and there were many other iirsportant
public works for which convict labour was needed. Now it
might bet said that imprisonment for life was too severe a
sentence to inflict; but imprisonment for life did not neces-
sarily imply detention for life within the walls of a gaol.
What he meant by perpetual imprisonment was merely safe
custody. He would not even exclude hope; for he had no
doubt that it would be foundpossible after the lapse of time
to allow a prisoner indulgences which would not militate
against his safe detention. On thispoint abundant evidence
had been given before the committee in favour of Dartmoor
rather than of Norfolkleland. Besides he could not suppose
that the people of this country would be so unreasonable as
to cavil at imprisonment for life at home while they were
perfectly willing to allow it abroad, where it could not be
carried out under circumstances so favourable to the pri-
soner at home. (Hear, hear.) With regard to less har-
dened offenders a great difficulty arose. This country had
not facilities for transporting them to colonies of the first
kind; and they could not be imprisoned for life. It had
indeed been proposed by the Recorder of Birmingham (Hr.
Hill), and by several other persons, that a criminal should
be kept in confinement until he had given distinct evidence
of his reformation ; and that if necessary he shoal i be de-
tained for life. Now be (Hr. Collier) did not think that
that plan could be carried out ' • for who were the parties
to be satisfied with respect to the criminal's reformation ?
Were they to be the visiting justices ? Was it to be the
chaplain ? He (Hr. Collier) did not think the public would
be willing to leave a question of such moment as a man's
liberty or perpetual confinement in the hands of the chap-
lain ; for he could quite conceive a chaplain not being
satisfied with a convict's theological sentiments, and on
that ground thinking him unfit to be let loose on society.
(Hear.) It seemed to him (Hr. Collier), therefore, that the
best thing they could do would be to transport as many
of these less desperate offenders as they could find colonies
willing to receive them ; and to subject the rest to
longer terms of penal servitude—terms which it might
be hoped would break up those criminal cliques and
coteries of which they had formed members. It had
been recommended by Sir Archibald Alison to found
one or two semi-penal colonies to receive this class ; and
to which four or five free settlers should be sent out for
every convict. But such a plan was open to more than one
serious objection. It would be attended with extreme ex-
pense ; and the new colonies would be of such a purely ar-
tificial char rater that they could never be expected to
lourish. (Hear.) One of the great points of those who
pleaded for transportation at any cost was that transports
seldom or never returned ; but that would not be an advan-
tage which would accrue from the proposed plan. The rea-
son why transports had not hitherto returned to this coun-
try was, they had been absorbed into the free colonial
population ; but if they were sent to mere penal establish-
ments, depend upon it they would find their way back
again to St. Giles's. On the other hand, they might hope
that if they gradually extended to convicts at home the
privilege of freedom, they might learn to use it without
abusing it. If they did not, and offended again, why then
they must imprison them for the rest of their lives.
(Cheers.) The right hon. baronet (Sir J. Pakington) ob.
jaded to the proposal of the Government, on account of the
uncertainty which would still remain whether a definite
sentence would be carried out. But that uncertainty was
in the nature of things. If they left it (as they ought to
leave it) to the Home-offiee to select which of the convicts
should be sent abroad, the judge could only sentence the
prisoner before him to penal servitude, and lot the govern.
ment say whether the man should or should not pass the
time in a prison at home. (Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Collier)
would not on the present occasion dwell on the important
question whether anything could be done by the govern-
ment for the criminal when his sentence had expired. He
thought not; for ho thought that all that must be left to
private individuals. Nor would he do more than allude to
the promise of the right hon. gentleman to bring in a mea-
sure for the reformation of j uvenilteoffenders. Ile thought
it a wise and sound measure to connect the reforma-
tion of the young with measures -of greater severity to
adults, and on the whole he considered the plan of the
right hon, gentleman a very important step towards the
improvement of our criminal administration. (Cheers.)
Sir J. RA MSDEN had had his attention called in a very
painful manner to the subject before the house, for the die.
trict in which he lived had been alarmed by the perpetra-
tion of many very serious crimes clearly traceable to re-
leased convicts. As far as he could gather the intentions
of the Government from the speech of the right hon. baro-
net (Sir G. Grey), they appeared to have adopted two of
the most important resolutions of the committee of last
session. The former of those resolutions recommended a
return to transportation so far as it was available as a
means of punishment. The other resolution recommended
that the sentences of penal servitude prescribed by the act
of 1853 should be lengthened, so as to be identical with the
terms of transportation for which they were substituted.
If he had ever heard of any large and efficacious scheme
for dealing with crime, he might perhaps have felt dissa-
tisfied with the scheme of the right hon. baronet ; but so
far as he knew, the problem still remained unsolved. That
transportation possessed many advantages to the country
was now prettily generally admitted ; but he thought that
the committee had stated those advantages rather too
strongly when they said that it bad both a deterring and
a reformatory effect. So far from that, all the evidence
went to show that transportation as a punishment was not
dreaded by the criminal classes. No doubt it had great ter-
rors for the accidental offender, the man who was still held
by the ties of family; but the habitual criminal looked upon
his existence as one of mere exile rather than as a condemna-
tion to penal servitude. Even in 1837, when the severities
of Norfolk Island were at their height, they found Sir G.
Arthur, the governor of Van Diemen's Land, deploring the
ignorance and insensibility of the criminal classes to trans-
portation, and actually proposing that measures should be
taken by the Government, by the publication of tracts, with
in
educated
rter placecha
es!
least d
the hardships and degradation of convicts when working in
chaina (Cheers.) Again, transportation could hardly be
appropriatebe
fore the
epictorial
o f
thelowest
illustrations,
and
recommended as a reformatory punishment ; for they had
it in evidence that both in New South Wales and Van
Diemen's Land the expirees and ticket-of-leave men were
the very worst class of offenders in those colonies, (Bear.).
But, although the purifying effects of transportation on
the criminal had been a little overstated, it would be dif-
ficult indeed to exaggerate the service it did the mother
country, by freeing it from a dangerous pest. At the
same time, he thought the Government had adopted a
sound and wise policy in declaring that convicts should no
longer be forced upon the colonies unwilling to receive
them ; and that resolution, no doubt, much harrowed their
facilities of resorting to transportation. He (Sir J. Rams-
den) was delighted to find that the Government were going
also to take steps for promoting the reformation of juve-
nile offenders. Every day's experience showed that the
protection of society by the reformation of adult criminals
was almost hopeless, and that it was by attempting the
improvement of youthful offenders alone that any real or
abiding good could be effected. (Oheers.)
Mr. ADDERLEY thanked the right hon. gentleman
for having brought forward the subject at so early a period
of the session. He agreed with every word that had fallen
from him, and if anything had disappointed him, it was
that the right hon. gentleman's measure did not go farther.
He hoped the right hon. gentleman would make up his
mind to abolish tickets cf leave altogether. (Cheers.)
Mr. LABOUCHERE said that the proposal of his right
hon. friend had been so favourably received by almost
every speaker, and there had been such& general desire that
the principal discussion should take place on the second
reading of the bill, that he did not feel it neck Amy to tres-
pass for any lengthened time. But he could not help ex-
pressing his satisfaction—not his surprise, for he had not
expected that it would be otherwise—that no speaker was
at all disposed to view this question exclusively as regarded
empirealar m had
b y-
the interests of this country, as distinguished from those of
e ees
colonial that
the colonies. (Hear.) We were bound to. take a large
and comprehensive view of the general interests of the en-
during
of the
ou recess en-
tire British empire—not to consider merely what might bo
convenient and agreeable to ourselves with regard to our
own home population, but to take into consideration the
past history and the present interests and feelings of the
colonies. He had never believed that it would be other
particular expressions which had fallen from some hon.
mem-
bers last year, and from the crime which existed in this
try. But he was perfectly certain that when Parliamentcoun-
met
the colonies would soon discover that there w
beenwis .
excited Accounts
i some
e come
portions
on the part of that house to deal with them othears no desire
on such an important question. (Hear, hear.) than justly
this question of transportation might be ndoubtedly
re-
ference partly to this country and
considered in
empire. With regard to this country,partly to our colonial
dis-
puted that there was the greatest it could not be
to resort, in a considerable degree,
toadvantage in being able
transpor-
tation for certain classes of criminals, a system of
of dispute—it had been matter It might be matter
opi-
nion amongst those who had of great difference of
subject—
how far transportation was most considered the
to our criminal or was not a deterring punish-
mentvery unequally. To be sent
He believed that it acted
an object of great out of the country was to some
punishment; but error, and it might be a deterring
creasing class towhom believed that there was a lerge wed in-
but a punioh transportation would be anything
ment. Coat i rad etory opinions had been given