THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8130, 2 May 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 1906.

The discussion, which took place on Monday evening last in Wellington, at the meeting of the Council of Churches on "Indeterminate Senteuces"was of an interesting character and was satisfactory in so far as it showed an increasing desire on the part of a good many people in this colony to see our system of treating criminals drastically reformed in various respects. That our present system is barbaric, and, at the same time, absurd, as it increases unnecessarily the taxation of the country, must be admitted by those who have studied the system but very moderately indeed. The discussion itself, as we have said, was satisfactory, as it indicated that those who took part in it were interested in the question of prison reform, but some of the views expressed cannot be similarly described. The system of indetermin- % te , senteuces, unless properly ap-

pliod, can only result ia making our present system more brutal than it is. * * * * # Tbe Rev. Mr Dawson, during the disoussion, said that "in Aus- ] tralia some such form of treating criminals was evidently being tried, for they found that hardened criminals were leaving that country, and we were getting some of them here. In the matter of self-protection i alone it required that some action should be taken in this direction." We believe we are correct in stating that it is in Victoria where the principle of indeterminate sentences is being applied, and in a very wrong way. A hardened criminal, at any rate, recently came before a judge in Australia who declared thai it was a menace to society that such a man (should be at large. His Honor, therefore, sentenced tin prisoner for an indefinite period. The system, it seems to ua, is only one of refined cruelty, unless its application be made to assist the only true object of prison reformers, viz., the reformation, or, the elevating of , the criminal. "We were getting some of them (hardened oriminals) here," said Mr Dawson, and then he urged, in effect, that we should institute a system of treating criminals in this country that would have the effect of frightening the Australian variety from coming to our shores. Tbia is scarcely either humane or logical. **' * * * But a brief contemplation of our present system of treating various criminals is sufficient to oreate astonishment as to why tbe Legislature has not been compelled by the people to effect oertain greatly needed reforms. There is generally more callousness and short-sigh tedneas in human nature than most of us are prepared to admit, and it is probably due to ' this cause that so little has been done in the respect mentioned. Take for instance our method of treating drunkatds—that system must certainly be regarded as inhuman, and more entirely unsatisfactory it could not be. There is nothing new about tbe views that are being expressed in a good many quarters just now, but it would be a new thing in the history of New Zealand to see the publio generally taking a keen interest in the different questions raised. Beocaria, in bis work "On Crimes and Punishments," published in 1764, and who, by the way, was looked upon pretty generally by the people of bis day as being a madman, or a criminal, or probably both, enunciated tbe principle of legitimate defence restrained within the limit of the common interest, in opposition to the older theory of publio vengeance.

The Elmira system is well known, and it may be mentioned that in tbe United States there are 65 reformatories, for juvenile offenders under the control of a State or city with an average nucaber of inmates exceeding 19,000, and the reformatory resalts are excellent. The whole course of tbe treatment at these schools is distinctly educational. The effect of eduoatlon in diminishing crime is so great and so widely recognised that it is quite unnecessary to dwell upon this point. It is said that a great eduoational reformer in England used to say, every time he saw a school being built, "there goes another gaol." But, however much education may be valued in this country, it is clear that "the sighing of the prisoners" has not yet touched the hearts of the people as a whole. When it does do so, reforms invaluable from the humantarian point of view, and of value in the eyes of the political economist us well, will be effected.