MR JUSTICE RICHMOND ON IMMIGRATION AND CRIME IN NEW ZEALAND.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1091, 22 July 1873, Page 2

MR JUSTICE RICHMOND ON IMMIGRATION AND CRIME IN NEW ZEALAND.

In the course of his charge to the Grand Jury at Picton, where a maiden assize was last week, his Honor Judge Richmond spoke as follows: — -" I am speaking of schemesforthe promiscuous importation of labor, and not of that healthy kind where people come out to join their relatives and friends. But I have no concern with the merely economical aspect of the question. Our function here is to take notice of what affects the moral health of the community ; our right and duty is to give warning of tendencies which threaten to increase crime in the country. As wisely might we replenish our wells with sewage water from London or Manchester as pour into these islands, without discrimination, the surplus popoulation of the cities of Europe. As regards the actual quality of the present immigration, I do not pretend to speak. The criminal statistics may be expected to furnish hereafter some indications on this subject; though it must be admitted that these are a very coarse test, and for various reasons a very uncetain one. In particular, we must remember that paucity of convictions may indicate the diminution, not of crime, but of the efficiency of the police. I observe a disposition (which ia a part of the social phenomena I have been commenting upon) to reduce the force of the police to a point which threatens to impair its efficiency. On the occasion of a maiden assize at Nelson, I lately told the Grand Jury there that we ought to make the event the subject, not so much of self laudatory remarks —such as those with which our newspapers are wont to feed our local vanity—as of the reflection that a blank calender is, all thiags considered, far too great a rarity in New Zealand. With our opportunities, I believe we might all but obliterate the criminal class. But for the unpleasant fact that Australasia still retains the penal taint due to the English practice of transportation, I should Hay, without hesitation, that the existence of a criminal class in this quarter of the globe argues gross mismanagement in the rulers of this group of colonies. Inoculated, as we have been, with the virus of hereditary crime (for since the days of gold we may identify ourselves with Australia in this respect, and in our gold-producing districts nearly every calender comprises ' old hands ') I still believe that by the adoption of a stern, yet merciful, system of penal discipline, we might hope almost to extinguish professional crime, and, as it were, blot out the recollection of Norfolk Island and Botany Bay. I have often indicated in public my ideas on this subject, and am not now now going further to enlarge upon it. It is enough to say that it would be the fundamental principle of the system to punish, or I would rather say extinguish, inveterate and incurable criminality by confinement of the offenders in a special penal establishment for life." " If I rightly understand the author of a very remarkable satirical fiction on the model of the renowned • Gulliver's Travels,' which has recently appeared in London, and has attracted a good deal of attention there, the same way, has occurred to the witty and philosopical writer. I may mention that the author pretends to have discovered a nation in a high state of civilisation, who in many ways reverse our notion of things. Amongst other peculiarities they treat crime as disease, and disease as a crime. People are sent to goal for a catarrh, and for pulmonary consumption get penal servitude for life. Measles are highly criminal, more especially in an adult; and their statutes, when it is desired to render an act ponal in the highest degree, declare that the offenders ' shall be deemed guilty of typhus fever.' " " This humorous, and, at first sight, purely fantastical, version of things,

may lead the thoughtful reader to many reflections on our treatment of the questions both of the public health and of crime. Some of whom we now treat as invalids might, not unreservedly, perhaps, be dealt with as criminals. I do not know that we Bhould be far wrong in finding a man guilty of delirium tremens. Other modes in which individuals impair their own health, and thereby that of future generations, might full Under the same consideration. On the other hand, abstinence from crim<), in some men seems to be, to the enfeebled will, as impossible as free breathing to the asthmatie, or the proper assimilation of food to the dyspeptic. An hospital for such incurables, where a stern but benignant discipline might leave them still just so much of their natural liberty as they were capable of using, would, perhaps, be to them the most merciful treatment they could receive at the hands of their fellow men; whilst society would be protected from their ravages, and by their enforced celibacy the human race would be a gainer. The book I refer to has special interest for us, as it bears internal evidence, not to be mistaken by a New Zealand colonist, of having been written by one of ourselves. I commend its perusal to any one who takes an interest in those deeper social questions whereupon depends the real wealth of nations. But as to any improvement in our terribly defective arrangements for the repression of crime I am well aware that it is not to be hoped for in the present state of the "public mind. Not the less should hose who think as I do on the subject, id more especially those entrusted 'th the administration of criminal 3tice, continue to raise their voices —Reprehension of public neglect"