RENEWAL OF TRANSPORTATION.
Tin whole subject of secondary punishments is to be brought before Parliament ; and although the initiative is taken by those who may be suspected of favouring the renewal of transportation, the discussion seems likely to be so open as to secure a fair hearing for all sides. On Monday next Sir George Grey is to introduce a bill to amend the Act of the 16th and 17th Victoria, chapter 93, intituled "An Act to substitute in certain eases other ishments in lieu of transportation." Sir George also intro
ces a bill to facilitate the establishment of Reformatory Schools in England ; a measure collaterally bearing even on transportation. Mr. Labouchere has obtained a Select Committee to consider the state of the British Possessions in North America which are under the administration of the Hudson's Bay Company; a part of the world recommended by many for a penal settlement. The territories under the Company comprise Vancouver's Island, which has been mentioned, with the Falkland Islands, as suitable for a penal establishment. Ministers bring forward another ominous bill, "to alter the Ecclesiastical Government of Norfolk Island " ; but, unless it bears upon the transportation of clerical offenders, we cast it out of the account— though probably a great contemporary will not. And various gentlemen connected with Western Australia have put in the claim of that colony to be continued as a penal settlement.* On the present showing, this last claim is the strongest. The colony, say its advocates' has already incurred the expense of prisons and depots; the free settlers are willing to employ the convicts ; the convict establishment has created a market for food, which is well supplied by the settlers ; the climate is good ; the territory is unconnected with the rest of Australia except by sea; and Rottenest Island is well adapted as a place of discipline for refractory convicts. It is not long since Mr. Elliot, Assistant Under-Secretary for the Colonies stated before the Select Committee of the House of Commons objections which the settlers in Western Australia were beginning to entertain to the reception of convicts, because the numbers were growing excessive, and the men had been less orderly than usual. Yet unquestionably there has been a feeling in Western Australia strongly, favourable to convict emigration. One reason is, that the settlement was from the first languishing, and it has craved some extraneous support. Another, that it is always inclined to depend upon Government assistance. A third, that there has been a jealousy which would make Western Australia prefer to differ from the other Australian Colonies. But the reasons laid down by the colonists in this country are to a great extent sound, and most especially in the practical separation of the colony from the rest of the continent by land-communication. All the routes hitherto known pass over tracts so desolate as to present greater obstacles to the transit of runaways than any other colony in the world.
We do not, indeed, know what the settlers would say to the proposal of the Times, that "the worst criminals shall be removed, at once and for ever, from our shores." The journalist contemplates a convict establishment at Norfolk Island ; promising that since we have overcome the difficulties of "rare and tedious communication," that too well-known place shall not become a leprous laser house. The "best possible public instructor" declines to enter into niceties " What we want is this : we require some practical measure for transportingfrom the shores of England altogether such persons as may be judged incapable of reformation." "They or we must go ; we cannot together inhabit the land." "We do not desire to see comparisons instituted between this sort of prison and that sort of prison : we want to see those * I very useful mass of information and evidence on the subject has been collected by Mr. Patrick Joseph Murray, and put into a shilling pamphlet of 170_pages. It is entitled "The Transportation, Ticket-of-Leave, and Penal Servitude Questions, plainly stated and argued on Facts and Figures; with Some Observations on the Principles of Prevention : in a Letter addressed to Mathew Davenport Hill, Esq., Q.C., Recorder of Birmingham." The pamphlet is published in London by Mr. Cash, in Dublin by Mr. Kelly.
Those who are interested in the subject may also like to peruse a shilling pamphlet, by Mr. William "Ellis, on the Reformatory process—" Where must we look for the Further Prevention of Crime ? " Published by Messrs. Smith and Elder.
persons whose presence is dangerous to society in this country extruded from the limits of the country, and compelled to pass their days elsewhere —not necessarily in bondage, nor in misery, but at any rate at a distance from the British shores." [If a burglar enters a man's house, the householder does not go to the library to refresh himself with a page of Beccaria, but takes the poker, and goes straight at Bill Sykes.] "Now, the presence of a regular criminal population in England is to the country what the nocturnal foray of that one burglar is to the individual householder. They and he must be got rid of out of the country and out of the house."
The appearance of the unemployed in some trades reminds us that we should not dispose of our colonial opportunities in favour of convicts, until we ascertain whether we want them for free men. Without denying the willingness of Western Australia to take a certain proportion of convicts, we are quite sure that we cannot augment the number of the men, or select a class of greater turpitude, without provoking a resistance in the colony.. In order to transport great numbers, we must look out for a larger territory. The two places mentioned have been the extreme North of British America and the North of Australia. Now in North America, as we have already remarked, the men will want a guard ; and -without a very numerous army to restrain them, they would necessarily wander Southward. Before we take practical steps for any such settlement in North America, it would be worth while to inquire in Canada, what would be the political effects of such proceeding? The Northern States of the adjacent Republic object to the demoralizing effects of slavery in the Southern States ; and we can just imagine that the British Provinces might equally object to the more demoralizing neighbourhood of a convict population. At all events, it is worth inquiry before wasting time and money in experiments.
With respect to Northern Australia there are two considerations. We doubt whether any tract of country which has been mentioned as the site of settlement stands so completely separated by impassable deserts as Western Australia is. But an expedition has been sent out to explore that part of the continent ; that expedition will report upon the capabilities of the region; it is quite possible it may offer itself as the site of a free colony, and if it were available for such a purpose, it would possess very great extrinsic value in reference to the rising commerce of the archipelago. It would be worth while, before planning any arrangements for a penal settlement at Northern Australia, to await the report of the exploring expedition.
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