ENGLISH EXTRACTS. The Convict System — House or Commons, March 8.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 332, 24 July 1849, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS. The Convict System — House or Commons, March 8.

A Debate en the Convict System was raised on a motion for certain papers. In bringing it forward, Lord Mahon sharply censured the inconsistencies of the government, and demanded some distinct statement of their opinions on the question. The principle for which he contended was, that piisoners, after the expiialion of their term of imprisonment should not be permitted to rpturn to the scene of their former crimes. He suggested that, in relation to North Australia, Lord Stanley's plan might advantageously be resumed, and convicts made the pioneers of free emigration. He thought that if the reformation of the convict could be wrought out in the colonies, the relief of the colonies by the introduction of convict labour should be kept in view. He charged Lord Grey with having acted imprudently, in giving a pledge that transportation io Van Diemen's Land should not be renewed, of the breach of which pledge the colonists now had a right to complain. His (Lord Mahon \s) practical suggestion was, that an amended system of convict assignment should be re-introduced. He referred to the opinions of the Bishop of Tasmania and Mr. Gibbon Walcefield as corroborating his view of the advantages which such a system might produce in Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales, and urged that the governors should be allowed to try it on a small scale as an experiment. . . Sir George Grey thought that consistency in working out a system of transportation, without regard to the light of experience, would be a fault, not a merit. He explained and defended the present plan, according to which the strictly penal part of the sentence — that which consisted of personal restraint, with forced labour — should be carried out in this country or its vicinity, lather than in a distant colony ; and that all convicts (with ceitain exceptions, relating to age and health) should be actually sent out of the country, — such a removal being a seveie punishment to themselves, and also tending to disperse them over the colonies without the dangers attending the congregating together of large masses of criminals. Norfolk Island would be kept as

a place of secondary punishment for convicts sent from Van Diemen's Land. With regard to female convicts, they would not he sent out until they had gone through the probationary state, and were fitted for useful service. He (Sir G. Grey) was entirely disappointed in the recommendations of Lord Mahon. To leturn to the establishment of Ninth Australia would require an enormous expenditure, without any corresponding advantages. The expediency of resuming transpoitation to New South Wales was under consideration. The resumption of the system of assignment was open to previous objections : it was a system of slavery incompatible with free labour, and the governors would, justly or not, be charged with partiality in the assignment of certain oonvicts to certain settlers. He much preferred the "ticket of leave" system, which permitted convicts to hire themselves to any settler. In carrying out the system of transportation, Government desiied to keep in view the interests both of the home countiy and the colonies, and he asked that peisons should judge for themselves of its effects, instead of exciting the minds of colonists by apprehensions of its possible evil results. — Mr. Gladstone said that the probation system which was pursued in Van Diemen's Land with the convicts sent in 1846, had been productive of the greatest horrors and iniquities. This, however, was not so much the fault of the system itself, as of the glaringly bad management of it. At the period when the greatest evil existed, Government was kept in utter darkness, and when they did strike the blow against the system, it was on the strength of private information, not of information derived from official sources. But the plan had never been fairly carried out ; there were still thousands in Van Diemen's Land in probation parlies; and Sir William Denison, in writing to the Colonial Office, had expressed his opinion that the system, if modified and efficiently worked, would be good. Lord Stanley had acted with constant circumspection in his dealings with the subject ; but Earl Grey's conduct had been marked by great precipitancy ; — great precipitancy in breaking up the establishment at Norfolk Island and carrying the convicts to Van Diemen's Land, and again in carrying the convicts from the establishment in New South Wales to Van Diemen's Land, notwithstanding the promise which had been given to the contrary. Mr. Gladstone proceeded to insist on the importance of extending as far as possible the area of transportation, so that, instead of sending convicts by thousands to one penal colony, till it was drenched in iniquity, they might be sent in numbers so small as to be easily, and with comparatively small evil, absoibed in the rest of the population. He strongly directed attention to North Australia, and expressed a hope that one or two cargoes of exiles from Pentonville would be sent there, rather than to Van Diemen's Land, where labour was very plentiful as compared with the demand.— After some further discussion, in the course of which Mr. H. A. Herbert called attention to the over-crowded prisons in Ireland, — Sir John Pakington spoke in favour of the separate system, which he thought would be most beneficial if the Government could engraft upon it the advantageous features of other systems — if they could add to it the excitement of industry and the rewards of exertion. — Mr. Alderman Sidney said he believed that Newgate and the House of Correction for the City of London might be reckoned amongst the most abundant sources from which convicts were transported out of the country. — Mr. Hume declared his belief that the system pursued in the Model Prison at Pentonville would never succeed, — and Sir George Grey stated, in reply to various questions, that the duration of separate imprisonment would depend on the conduct and character of the prisoner, but the maximum time would be eighteen months, — and that the colonies to which convicts had recently been sent were Van Diemen's Land, New South Wales, and the Cape of Good Hope — Lord Mahon's motion (which was merely a formal way of introducing the subject) was agreed to. Ireland. — Sunday, the 9th of March having been fixed on for collections to relieve the Pope from pecuniary embarrassments, contributionswere poured in with a liberality as great as in the palmiest days of the O'Connell Fund. In the chapels of Dublin alone, the collections amounted to about £2000. ..The feuds between the Orangemen and the Roman Catholics in the North had revived. A recent conflict in Ulster, in which a Roman Catholic lost his life, had led to threats of wholesale retaliation on the Protestant party. A collision between the " Threshers " and the Orangemen took place at Crossgar, near Downpatrick, in which a policeman and a woman were shot, and several persons wounded.. .Theie were still rumours of the intention of Go\ernmeiit to impose an income tax on Ireland. .The peasantry, undeterred by the expeiieuce of three years of famine, had again staked their existence on their favourite loot, having extensively cultivated the potatoe. For this purpose, large sums uerefoithcoming for the purchase of seaweed and guano... The agitation for " Rotatoiy Parliaments" was likely to be levrved. . .The tiadc of Dublin was stagnant, and the letiogression iv the consumption of many important articles very striking,

China. — A tragical occurrence at a Chinese village called Wongmakok hadproducedastiong sensation. Captain Da Costa, and Lieutenant Dwyer of the 95th Regt., had entered a house, and behaved improperly to a young female. — Her friends endeavoured to turn the officeis ont, and were struck by them with canes, on which some of the villagers, armed with spears, interfeied and killed both the officers. Theyafteiwards robbed the bodier, and threw them into the sea. After a lengthened inquest, a Coioncr's jury returned a verdictof wilful Murder against several of the Chinese.