Extracts.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 433, 27 December 1856, Page 3

Extracts.

TRANSPORTATION; (From the ' Times:) Our experience of the last few years with regard to criminals has not been very agreeable Amt we are sure that it has been very salutary^ < and that the lessons we have learnt will not soon be forgotten. Time was when it was thought right to bait our criminals as mercilessly as a farmer destroys vermin, and for every paltry theft to string them by scores on'the gibbet as weasels and magpies are nailed on a barn-door. The distance between those days and the present time, when the convict occupies so much of our attention is enormous, and not to be reckoned in years. The mere fact that we have learnt to respect human life, and to regard the criminal as no longer a thing to be put out of the way in the quickest mode possible, but as a man to be influenced, to be trained, to be reformed, is a proof how greatly we have advanced. And most vexatious as the result of suspended transportation has been to us, it has had one good effect in making us more intimately acquainted with the temptations and difficulties of a class whose ways _we have hitherto had little opportunity and little inclination to study. For one thing every man with a spark of benevolence will rejoice—that we have in this way been compelled to look to the younger criminals, and to make a broad distinction between these and the older convicts. We have hope for the former; in this country we have very little hope for the latter. We have been trying every system—the silent system, the solitary system, the mixed system, the ticket-of-leave system,—and at the end of all we know not what to do. We are plagued out of our lives, as many a householder is with a smoky chimney which he can't cure; and, as the same householder, having tried every expedient, at last puts out the fire and declares that he will rather go without than endure such a nuisance, some have no doubt at times been ready to look back with admiration at that old plan, the easiest of all, by which we saved trouble and unlimited expense by at once extinguishing our criminals. It will readily be understood that we are thus willing to look at the \iright side of a penal system which has caused us much annoyance from tlie knowledge that its days are numbered. The authorative exposition of the many evils in our present penal discipline, and of tlie necessity of returning as far as possible to the old method of transportation, contained in the resolutions of the the Select Committee of the House of Lords, which appeared in our impression of yesterday, may be regarded as decisive with reference to this most important qurstion. These resolutions but echo the feeling of the country at large, md they are not likely to be neglected by tlie Government. The question is, indeed, a pressing one, and in one form or another calls for legislative interference. The ticket-of-leave system was established for a certain nnmber of years, and is now about '.o expire. Although' in some respects it has been disappointing,— very much, we believe, from causes which are under our own control, —still the principle on which it is based is too sound to be allowed to fall into desuetude, and the practice has, with all its faults, been so beneficial that it would be insane to allow it to die a natural death. It is therefore in any case incumbent on the Government to decide how far and under what limitations andimprov<ements they will continue this system of licence by which a convict is virtually able to purchase a large remission of his Sentence. But,L't(icii, on the other hand, if the ticket-of-leave system is too good to be altogether thrown aside, it must be admitted that as a substitute for transportation its deficiencies are palpable .and incurable. It is absolutely necessary to 1 evert ito transportation, which, for the three parties con- ■ earned in that mode of punishment—the home population, who get rid of their criminals ; the criminals, who are transported to a new region ; the colonists, who obtain a supply of much-needed labour—is the best that has yet been devised. For ourselves it is certainly the best, notwithstanding the large ex-rense which the deportation of our convicts necessarily entails—an expnice, however, which is not so great if we compare it with tbe sums which are-disbursed'in the transport of emigrants. For the convict is the happiest fate in the world; he has no chance here, while in Australasia he has a wide field before him, and no man who is willing to ■work can say that work is refused to him. It is even for the good of the colonies, if the system be properly managed. Let no one retort that the colonies actually refused our convicts. They did, indeed, and we do not wonder at it, considering the reckless manner in which the criminals were poured into those regions. It is possible to have too much of a good thing. Manure is very good forthe fields, and yet we have the inhabitants of Plumstead pray-

nig the_Metropolitan Board of Works not to send tl>e Ui-dinnge of London to them. If convicts are to be Jet loose among a free and respectable population, it must evidently be done with moderation and wj.th strict precautions. Were it not for gross abuses that crept in and that might have been prevented, the Australian colonies would be receiving our convicts to this day, and only 100 glad to get them at the cost of this country. How much they are m want of labour is sufficiently proved by the tact that during the last three years the three colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia have transmitted to the Emigration Commissioners in London more than a million and a halt of money in order to obtain recruits for their population. For the sake of all parties, therefore, we shall expect to hear soon that measures are taken to obtain a renewal of transportation to the colonies, as well as to continue and to re-adjust the terms of penal servitude at home. But where, after all, are we to send our prisoners? I hat is not a very difficult matter to decide. There is the whole northern coast of Australia, and especially the G'idf of Carpentaria, to choose from ; not to speak of Vancouver's Island, the Falkland Islands, and innumerable possessions of Great Britain scattered all over the world. Among these a suitable locality will very soon suggest itself, and the only point of importance is to take proper precautions, first of all, that the character of >he settlement shall be well defined, so that we may not soon again be in the predicament into which the refusals of some of our colonies to accept our convicts have forced us. If, however, the result of such precautions should be that emigrants would be effectually deterred from the spot, and that the colony should prove to be a convict settlement and nothing more, We Cannot help thinking that such a result would be far from desirable, one of the good effects of the old system of transportation on the convict being that lie had his ticket-of-leave among respectable colonists, and, when he was free, was free to work his way among honest men, and to earn a position as one of them. It will therefore be necessary to provide that, in the event of the colony being resorted to by ordihaiy settlers, there shall not be too great an infusion of the convict element, and that emigration shall keep pace with transportation. After the bitter lesson that we have been taught, we hope that these considerations will not be overlooked, and in this hope we hail with entire sa isfaction the prospect of reverting to a system of penal discipline that is sound in theory and that has been found most advantageous in practice.