CONVICTS—THE CAPE. (From the Times of 18th September)

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 399, 9 February 1850, Page 3

CONVICTS— THE CAPE. (From the Times of 18th September)

The present outcry at the Cape against the admis* sion of convict prisoners, raises a two-fold question —What is th« value of that colony ? \yhat are we

to do with our convicts ? The former applies onlJ to the colony ; the latter to England, jurisprudence, and civilization. If we were to measure the value of the Cape colony by the usual standard of statists and economists, we do not know that we should recognise in its past history or its present promise any very great claimi to peculiar consideration at the hands of thii country or its Government. Subject to the British Crown for nearly fifty years, occupying throughout this period a territory of 110,000 square miles, and exprndej latterly beyond these limits by the successful issue of wars into which it plunged withouf. the sanction of the Mother-country, it would not be difficult to point out the va»t difference between the advantages which this colony has conferred on England and those which it might have been expected to confer. Perhaps in no other colony has progress been so slow— of no other have the natural facilities been so little improved — and on no other has the money of the Mutber-country been lavished with so hi tie return, or d manded with so little compunction. Colonies twenty or thirty years younger than the Cape have displayed an energy and spirit which put to shame their elder rival — have amassed labour funds, and have provided means of immigration, which have been neglected by that great settlement, from which its more immediate proximity and its vaster extent led us to expect at least as strong exertions and as energetic efforts as have promoted the growth of Australia and New Zealand. Thii should be brought to the recollection of the colon'its when they murmur at the conduct of the British Government towards them. At this moment England hai a large amount against them. They might justly ask themselves what they can reasonably do to liquidate the debt. An unreasonable extortion we should not advise the Government to attemptneither should ive recommend it to make an unreasonable concession. The burden of the colonial griev* ance is, tint the Colonht Office ii trying to make the Cape a penal settlement of the same kind as Taamania and New South Wales. Were this the case, no language of tbe complainants could be stiong enough to denounce so gross and intolerable an outrngp. Everything that has been said by the most violent of the declaimers against the Government would have been amply deserved hnd this assumption been just. But this is not so. The Colonial Office, which has many real sins of its own to answer for, has not on its con■cience the tin of wishing to corrupt the Cape into another Botany Bay. There has been no intention of making the Cape a penal settlement. All that has been done has been to send out one or two hundred convicts, a large proport on of whom had already passed a probationary discipline under inspection at home, for the purpose of bung assigned as labomera in the colony. The others were Irish prisoners, transported on a first conviction, for crimes committed under the pressuteof severe and unusual privation for the express purpose of being ti.msported. We recollect drawing the attention of the public to the peculiar features of the liish calendar in the spring of this year. It wns a matter of observation then that the character ot Irish crime was abnormal and inconsistent with the general habits ot the ciiminal popula. tion. Prisoners pleader guilty by score* to acts of ' larceny and robbery such as had hardly ever found a place in the Assize calendar. There were few— hardly any— of those acts of personal violence and agrarian outrage which used to characterize the procerd-ngs of an Irish Assize. The prisoners avowed that they had committed the crimes with which they stood charged for the express purpose of exchanging a wretched life in a smitten countiy for subsistence of any k'nd elsewhere. Many of these — penons untainted by any previous criminality— are among the piisoners wlio^e approach fills the purists of the Cape with such hoiror and alarm. A few others are political criminals; and the rest — a large majority—have been selected for their good conduct and do ility during their imprisonment at home. They are tbe elite, not the scum, of condemned men, whom Jt has been tlie benevolent policy of the Government to save from the contamination of ordinary criminals, and to restore to the path of honesty and industry in anothtr country. None ol these classes can be for a single moment compared with those wretched outcasts whose horrid presence tainted the Gyara; of the Antipodis, The discontent of the Cape colonists is disproportionate so the cause, if not wholly baseless. But it is not merely a question between thp Cape and Gieat Britain. The subject is far wider and mote momentous than this. Suppose that the colonists were satisfied that they had exaggerated the dangers of this dreadful importation and the wickedness of iti member*, or that the Government oiceled their demandi, yet we should have again to ask ourselves , this question, " What must be done with our convicts ?'' There can be lictfe doubt that no attempt will be hereafter made to perpt tuate a systeoa of re ial settlements similar to that of Noifolk Lland, or, in all its details to that of Botany B ly. The moral sense of the country will hardly permit us to found fresh communities ia crime and tin. Those who have owed their fortunei and position to the facilities of convict labour in gone-by days, would be among the first to denounce and decry the continuance of such a policy. The settled colonies — even those the magnates of which trace their origin back to convicts and emancipists — would rebel against it. The Legislature and Government would be inundated with descriptions of the public immorality and the domestic atrocities which flowed from its impure source. What, then, must be done with the criminals of the country? — Evidently, the first and most striking evil of the old system was its want of classification. The prisoners sentenced to transportation were all huddled together under one comprehensive term and in one compendious doom. Yet, how different w t re they in character, in guilt, in temptation, in the advantages of fortune, education and intelligence ! How blind wa« the 1 policy which confounded the coarse violence of the sottuh and dull clod-hopper with the refined wickedness of the astute and Knowing Londoner— the deliberate and ingenious crime of the metropolitan proficient with the stupid docility of his ignorant and rustic follower ! The consequences were such as might' easily have been foreseen. Commingled and confounded in one judicial doom, this motley crowd soon found its general level of impurity— the worst corrupted the bad, and the bad infected the stupid. State! and societies were founded out of elements thus foolishly and hurtfully composed. This defect, with its consequences, is in process of correction. It ii easier than was once believed to classify prisoners. The trsts applied are not indeed always infallible. The clever, experienced and cunning criminals can always baffle the sagacity of cbaplaißß and the ingenuity of gaolers. Still, in a majority of cases probationary treatment, in combination with the record of the Sessions and Assizes, will go a great way to establish the character of a prisoner. At liast, it will be generally possible to separate the depraved from the accidental criminals -the incurables from those who may be reformed. And it is a fortunate thing for society that the incorrigible do not constitute the majority. '] his being the casf , the punishment of convicts may be distributed wilh greater advantage to them-

selvei and the country than heretofore. It will thus be possible to apportion their just penalty to each, and to select a certain clasi, whose reformation, under given condition!, may be hoped and expected. Theeo it will be advisable to transport to the coloniei. Tkv. consideration! recommend this course. In thefi(\j> place, Enplrtnd cannot undertake to keep all her ' forcats' at borne; it would be too costly and too dangerous an experiment. We should hare to multiply our gaols and our police ; and then we should hurdly feel ounelves secure with such a community among us in times of pressure or political excitement. Again, the labour of convicts would be highly useful to many of our coloniei. There are some kinds of public norks which are absolutely neceisary to the progress and prosperity of )oung colonies— roads, bridges, harbours and tanks—which can only be completed by compulsory labour. This compulsory labour, we suppose, would not lie deemed too har»h an exaction from the violators of their country 1 ! laws ; and by employing it upon public works many of the enormities would be escaped which haunt the memories and exasperate the indignation of those who condemn convict assignment most warmly. In addition to this, the colony would learn from such a beneficial application of an ob* noxious service that its owu advancement w»s per fedly consistent with the exercise of metropolita authority; and the other party to ihe transaction— the convicts themselves— would obtain the means of regaining their lost respectability. Why ihould not Government introduce into the Cape such a modification of this system as would at the same moment ease the Mother-country, benefit the colony, and reform the convicts themselves ?