PRISON LABOR.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2626, 7 September 1882, Page 2

PRISON LABOR.

Mb. C. Johwstok is a man of many wiles. He apparently holds certain views on the question of prison labor. That question has attracted much attention during the present session. Petition after petition has been sent np to the House on the subject, in which the signatories have declared their utter detestation o£ allowing prisoners to be taught trades in gaols or to compete in any way with outside labor. It is true that the petitioners have found themselves frequently in terrible dilemmas. It has been conceded that the prisoners must do something, and every sot of petitioners has endeavored to push the work to be done in prisons on to a trade or trades other than their own. Bootmakers declare that prisoners should break stones, forgetful of the fact that a number of people outside prison walla gain a livelihood by breaking stones. Other trades have tried to push prison labor on to the agricultural interest: and so on. A very pretty feeling of intense selfishness has pervaded all these docnmeats, every man looking cat for him* self, and the devil not only being allowed to take the hindermost but every body else except the signers of any one particular petition. As for any desire to ameliorate the «Dndition.of the prisoners, or to give them any chance of reforming when they leave the prison wails, that has been never thought of for a second. But Mr C. Johnston thinks ha sees a way out of the difficulty. The prisoners, he proposes, should be employed in manufacturing New Zealand flax. As the general impression is that nobody ever touches (commercially speaking, of course) that valuable-looking plant without having his hands burnt in the process, Mr. Johnston no doubt imagines that he has discovered an industry for the incarcerated which will clash with no prudent set of- men in the outer world. The idea is not a bad one, and Mr. Johnston deserves due credit for it. But are the prisoners to go on manufacturing flax when their term is over p Will they then ha supposed to be equipped for a new straggle with the world under more favorable auspices ? That is the rub..