CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 52, 4 March 1843, Page 207

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor op the Nelson Examiner.

Sib — Can you account for the apathy which exists among the settlers of Nelson respecting the cultivation and dressing of flax ? We were informed by you 6ome weeks since that two Scotchmen had undertaken to prepare a quantity for exportation, but I cannot learn that any one now knows anything of the matter. Surely it is time for the colonists to bestir themselves. I will ask tbe storekeeper where they think the money is to come from to buy the articles they import, unless the agriculturists can bring money into the colony by the export of some article produced here. The New Zealand Company will not go on for ever roadmaking; and where is capital to come from when they stop ? The merchants at Wellington, knowing that they cannot much longer depend on tbe Company, are exerting themselves strenuously so as not to require its aid when it shall be withdrawn. Why should we wait until the eleventh hour, when some unforseen event may prove to our sorrow that we have waited too long ? Although we have been told by our Wellington friends that we are too fond of public meetings, I think that on a subject on which the interest of every man in tbe settlement is at stake we can afford to have another. Or might we not, to avoid a needless waste of time, make it part of the business of the meeting about to be held to form the Agricultural Association ? In conclusion I beg to remind storekeepers that, however well filled their stores may be, unless people have money to purchase, they will make but a sorry living ; and agriculturists, large and small, that although they may grow sufficient wheat for home consumption and export a few potatoes, the return from these will be very inadequate to tbeir wants.

I am sir, yours, &c. A Settler.

Voluntary Banishment Project. — Public attention has been directed to a suggestion, said to originate with Sir James Graham, that a permanent court should be established in the metropolis for the trial of common larcenies and frauds ; and that in the instance of juvenile offenders who are found guilty of the alleged offence, they should have the alternative of selecting the colony to which they will submit to be expatriated. It is difficult to conceive on what grounds of public policy this project can be supported. As far, perhaps, as relieving this country from the charge of maintaining these offenders in penitentiaries and home prisons, there may be something urged. But what will compensate the colonies for the presence of so much uncorrected vagabondism ? If the reason which operates with the Government to adopt a measure of this nature — namely, the corrupting influence of these gentry on the habits of their associates in crime within the walls of a prison — how, we are tempted to ask, is it lessened within the limits of a convictship on its long and tedious voyage ? Or, on their arrival in the colony, are we to suppose that freedom from restraint is to operate as an inducement to virtue ? The fallacy in the reasoning of Sir James Graham will be found in the assumption that the absence of employment in the case of hardened criminals is the cause of crime ; and that where there is the presence of employment and the prospect of promotion, there will exist the strongest incentives to reformation and virtue. So they would, undoubtedly, to well-disposed and ■well-regulated minds. But such characters, for whom this measure is suggested, are the hopelessly idle and vicious, on whom nothing but severe discipline and the strictest seclusion can operate to produce that change in their habits which will elevate their moral nature, and make them useful members of society. The colonies in Australia want no greater increase to the elements of crime than is already furnished by the unhealthy proximity of the penal settlements ; and to turn loose upon society, in a country in which the police regulations are, from necessity, imperfect, the corrupted youth of the old country, is an act of injustice which nothing but_ignorance of its effects can palliate, or the might which makes the infliction of evil right, defend. We must confess we look with great suspicion upon these new-fangled schemes of offering a bounty to ,X oim g criminals to enlist as^recruits in the cause of amendment. "We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears ; " and this morbid sentimentality, acting on the mawkish philanthropy of well-disposed but very unreflecting persons, has done a very great deal of harm. Let .the divisions of the gravity of crimes be well ascertained, and the punishment certain. Let it be written over our prisons, " Who enters here, leaves all hope behind;" and the wholesome terror of fear will exert its corrective influence on minds incapable of any other impression. On the part of the colonies, we protest most indignantly against the principle that they are to be made the subjects of doubtful experiments, originating in crude notions of criminal reformation. The smallest particle of poison is sufficient to impregnate with deadly influences the pure stream, and a young society struggling with the difficulties of its situation has more than enough to contend with, without adding to its difficulties the eradication of incipient and rooted crime by means of institutions neither suited to its circumstances, nor within the grasp of its means. We shall return to this subject; at present we are strongly impressed that the proposition is a covert scheme of making the whole range of the British colonies a species of penal settlements for the unreclaimed and irreclaimable juvenile vagabonds of the mother country. — Emigration Gazette.

Advantage of a Bad Ear. — I would recommend the knowledge and practice of music to all studious persons; and it will be better for them, if, like myself, they should hare no very fine ear, or exquisite taste ; as by this means, they will be more easily pleased, and be less apt to be offended when the performances they hear are but indifferent—Dr. Priestley.

Common education instils into young people a second lelf-love.— BochrfotunmU.