Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1911. SELF-SUPPORTING PRISONERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10223, 26 April 1911, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1911. SELF-SUPPORTING PRISONERS.

The prison, farm scheme of New Zealand has unconsciously received the emphatic indorsation of no less an authority than a member of the English judicial bench. Mr Justice Grantham recently attended* a meeting jfrf the Liverpool Discharged Prisoners* AM Society, and in some comments on the treatment of prisoners advanced the theory that they should be self-supporting. The great question of the day, he said, ■was what would be the result of the proposed by the Home Secretary for dealing with prisoners at the pr.d o? their sentence? Dis-

charged prisoners required just as much assistance as convicts. He welcomed the removal of the necessity for ex-prisoners to report themselves ; lie liad protested against this requirement for the past thirty-five years. "I do not think," lie proceeded, "that our present reform system is a good one for acting as a deterrent. .1 can assure you that I look upon myself as the greatest fraud possible. Every day I pass sentence of hard labour. It is all nonsense. It is just the happiest state of their lives. There is juss enough to do to keep them occupied. They know that they have got their food, clean bedding, clean washing, clean water, and plenty of the best food that can possibly be given them, and only just enough work to keep them in health. It is no punishment at all. The proper way is to get them to work on land, and make some arrangements whereby we _can have | farms for the sake of giving work to the prisoners. I would make every prison! self-supporting, growing its own wheat and doing everything." What Mr Justice Grantham, exiggests Dr Findlay is about tcr dt> portion of the reclaimed areS of ■he New River Estuary, and if 'the financial success that has attended the existing market garden on a, small piece of land can be taken as a criterion, the farm of 6QO odd acres should give scope for reproductive work that will relieve the taxpayer of liability for maintenance, and make better members of society of. those whose disciplinary period has been ,spent in healthful and useful occupation. ;