The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 1884.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4063, 30 July 1884, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 1884.

The Bill before the French Senate for the < AA'holesalo deportation of habitual criminals "] owes its origin to the late M. Gambetta's ■; loss of temper. It is said that, when ad- ( dressing his constituents at Belleville, he found himself before an angry, turbulent, , and gesticulating audience The London \ Times, in .telling the story, says lie had , offended Ids constituents; they Avould not \ hear him ; eA'eu .his A'oico and his fine , presence Avere not enough te silenco their . insolent clamour.. .Then Gambelta frankly j lost his temper, shook his stick in their faces, and threatened them. I]"e would. punish them; he'would truck (hem out; lie ' Avould pursue them jusr/tic dans h urs rcpaircs. ' The result was the Bill for dealing with rccidieists, as tAvicc-coiiA'icted criminals arc 1 called in France ; a Bill Avhich is to permit i: the Government to transport such persons £ to,the French colonies iv the Pacific, and 1 Avhen there, to giA'o them a greater elegreo v of liberty than is the case Avith the convicts a h'oav transported there. Tho plain meaning v of this, in the view of the Australians, is n that their continent Avould very soon bo b overrun with French criminals, who 1 Avould, of .course, take the earliest op- t' portunity of leaving the bplitu'des of 'c

the He dcs Pines for a settled country in which they Avould have the chance, of "plying their trade." _ This (says the Times) is the prospect which is noAv exercising the minds of our Australian colonists, and which, unless it is speedily changed, will continue to exercise them to a more and more dangerous degree. They have before their eyes the actual facts of New Caledonia, the condition of which settlement, as Avas shown in M. Denis's graphic description Avhich we recently analyzed, has been lately going from bad to worse. There are in New Caledonia at least a thousand murderers, convicted by French juries " with extenuating circumstances," and tbe discipline of the island— whero tbe Governor calls the convict " mes enfants " — is so much milder than that of a French prison that many a convict at home commits or attempts a murder in order to be transported. Many of these "unfortunates —another of the Governor's terms of endearment—escape to Australia, and from them our kinsmen can form their idea as to what their- brethren under the recidnnste law will be like. It is enough to say that, if the luav becomes a reality" a wholesale revival of bushranging is regarded as certain; and. what that implies to the colonists, living in isolated country houses or in small and scattered settlements, any one Avith colonial experience or connexions can easily picture to himself. The correspondent reminds'the Times that

tho Australians,when they were far fewer, poorer, ancl weaker than they are now, met and coped AA'ith a like difficulty, and came out victorious. "They Avere "not afraid of defying the mother country; they threatened the simple and effective measure of reshipping all the.convicts they could.catch, and landing them on the coast of Devonshire. The British Government was sensible enough to yield, and the experiment Avas not tried. But, unless the French Government is equally well-advised, or unless the Senate AA'ill materially modify the Bill when it comes before them, something of the same kind, or avoi'sr, will certainly be tried npw; for the colonists mean Avhat they say.