IMMIGRANTS WITH CONVICTS. (From the Sydney Morning Herald, January 4)

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 396, 30 January 1850, Page 3

IMMIGRANTS WITH CONVICTS. (From the Sydney Morning Herald, January 4 )

Earl Grey's deipatch of July, 1849, ia which his LarJship has " much sattstisfsction" ia acquainting GoTernor Sir C, A. Pitz Roy that Parliament has, on the recommendation of her Majesty's Government, granted a sum of money "in order to enable the Government to lend, free immigrants to those colonies vrhikh receive convicts from Great Britain and Ireland, is exceeding plausible and exceedingly courteous. We appreciate his Lordship's civility ; we are perfectly •ware of the difficulties with which he and hit minis" terial colleague! are beiet in regard to the disposal of criminal! sentenced to transportation ; we are equally aware that there it no more simple and effectual method of overcoming the difficulty than that of distributing the offenders amongst the colonies ; and we are quite willing to give her Majesty's Government the credit of nisking to avail themselves of this resource in the way least calculated to injure the colonists, and most calculated to beipeak their cheerful co-operation. But with all this, we must be excused for retaining onr conviction that transportation, however modified* and with whatever compensations accompanied, i 3 incompatible with the true interests of this community, and repugnant to the wishes of full nine-tenths of oar fellow-colonists. While, therefore, we may admire, the conciliatory terms in which the despatch ia couched, we are not to be deceived as to its true character. Its pretty language is but the gilding of a pill. Beneath its honied accents there lurks a desdly ■ting. Its promises are threats in disguise. Th« benefits which it offers in so kindly a spirit and with so generoui a hand, would be found on trial to be the veriest banes with which » young country could be afflicted. It will be remembered that when Earl Grey first made known his wish to revive transportation to these shores, he couple 1 his proposal with two promises— that no convicts should be sent to the colony without the consent of the Legislative Councjl first had and obtained ; and that, when setit, they should be accompanied, at the fxpensc of the British Treasury, witU an equal number of free emigrant". Both these promises were broken. Convicts were actually shipped off for New South Wales while the question was yet under reference to the local authorities'; and in tie deipatch announcing this breach of one of the promises, his Lordship coolly signified his Mention of breaking the other. In the deipatch now before us this last breach of faith is alluded to : but we could wish the allusion had been more contrite and more fiplicit. Thongh his Lordship professes to " regret" the deviation from his word, he vindicates it on the ground that the financial state af the country at tha time " did not admit" of any other curse. It surely admitted of his keeping the convicts at home until the financial state of the country should have improved, or until the Council should have expressed its willingness to receive them without the emigrants. Nor is the despatch sufficiently explicit as to the enquiry whioh naturally suggests itself, whether the number of emtgrnnts is to be proportioned to the number of convicts previously sent out, or only to the numbr to* le srnt out thereafter. As in all his dispatches on tbis disagreeable subject, so in the present one, the Noble Load takes it for granetd that his modified system of transportation, if supported by the cooperation of the colonists, will work, to the advantage and the satisfacton of all concerned. It will furnish each colony receifing convicta with " useful labour ;" it will materially conduce to the "reform of the prisoner!" who are removed thither; while the numbers sent being "moderate," and the convicts taeing placed under " jndicious management," •• no perceptible injury" will accrue to the moral tone of the community. The colonists have yet to learn that, taken as a whole, and taken espe* daily in comparison with the labour of frea emigrants, convict labour deserves to be eu'ogited'as "useful."— They have alsp to, learn by what sort of judicious management the moral tone of a small community like tbis is to be preserved uninjured by contact with men whom it is deemed unsafe to turn lose in the vnst communiiy of England, His Lordship is equally fucile in taking for granted transportation and eligible emigra lon mny be carried on simultaneously, nurmer for number. The hippy results, to be anticipated from the transfer of " useful labour" from the gaols and hulks of England to the plains of Australia, is to hi •« greatly _ promoted by the .provision now made for introducing, simultaneously with the priioneis^ an equpl nntnfor of persons who have never been convicted of any offenre against the laws of their country." In immigration, as in other things, the value of quantity depends ; «pon the value of quality. And my Lord Grey's standard of quality is not such a standard as the colonists repuire. It is a mere negation, and a negatsonin which no honest Englishman can take pride. It remiuds us of the o'd criterion of morality which prevailed here in the palmy days of convict ascendancy, when the most satisfactory proof a man could adduce of the purity of his character wait that be bad never been before a Bench of Magistrates. There are thousand* and tent of thousands of men ia England who have never been convicted of crime, but who are nevertheless totally unsuited to supply this colony with " useful labour." We do not want the filth of England's streets, nor the offscouring of England's workhousei. And wo very seriously doubt the practicability of inducing therequired number of industrious men and oi virtuous women to emigrate to any country which is known to be the abode and the continued recipient of convicted felons. Even without this repollant, it is found sufficiently difficult to persuade people of the right stamp to emigrate to the Antipodes rather than to the western continent. Let it once come to be generally understood amongst the labouring classes at home, that Australia, besides being at the other end of the earth, is also the harbour of refuge for the thieves md cutthroats of the United Kingdom, and we fancy Earl Grey, with all his appliances of paid Commissioners and paid Agents, would find it a. hard, a hopeless ta>k to beat up the needful number and the ngedful qually of emigrant recruits. « I shall give the Commissioners of Emigration," says the Noble Lord, " the necessary instructions for entering without delay on the expenditure of the grant." But, before these instructions can be carried out to the satisfaction of the colonists, they must be accompauied by instruction's to proclaim far and 'j wide that Australia is not and shall not be Subject to tuft dangers, the pollution*, and the infamy of a Penal Settlement.

The Chamber of Commerce, New York, Im dmded iv favour of Whitney'* scheme, for.a Railraad*^ ' tye Pacific, and have adopted ikreiolutioa^^resa^' recommending it to the prompt 'atlfehtidn. of Coogrees ~ Whitneys it the extreme 'tiofttiertt route, and ii considered the only feasible one by which the Asiatic commerce can reach America. It starts from Prairie dv Cblen, in Wuconsin. Father Matthew, the celebrated Iriih prieif, it in. the neighbourhood of Boiton, giving the temperance pledge to hii countrymen, who receive him joyfully, iv common with the people generally.