§ Bill read 3a (according to order), with Amendment.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved the insertion of a Clause applying the provisions of Acts concerning transported offenders to offenders under sentence of Penal Servitude.
THE EARL OF AIRLIE, in rising to put the question of which he had given notice, proceeded to consider the operation of the Bill of 1853, by which transportation was so much restricted, and urged the necessity of some relaxation of the stringency of that Act. In 1850, 2,455 persons had been actually transported; in 1851, 2,240; in 1852, 2,541; besides those sent from Ireland. He learned from what had occurred in the other House, that the Secretary of the Home Department had calculated that Western Australia would only take 1,000 convicts a year, so that we should have an enormous number of criminals let loose in this country. In a colony the convict could obtain employment—here he could hot. He, therefore, deprecated any measure which did not provide for the sending out of convicts from this country. The noble Lord concluded by asking Her Majesty's Government whether it was their intention to take any steps with the view of counteracting the evil consequences which must follow from the discontinuance to a great extent of the punishment of transportation beyond the seas under the operation of this Bill and of the Act of 1853.
§ THE EARL OF HARROWBYregretted that his noble Friend had not expressed his views when the Bill was in progress. He did not know that he could give any 19 answer other than that it was a matter requiring the gravest consideration. He believed the good sense of the country would be quite sufficient to prevent any system being carried into effect which would, as in other nations differently situated, consign criminals to imprisonment for life. No such system certainly could be permitted in England; and he thought that the impracticability of employing criminals constantly upon the construction of roads and in other public works had been clearly pointed out in the discussion upon this question. Indeed, so many difficulties arose the moment that such a course was suggested that it was quite evident that it would fail, even if any Government had the temerity to try it. Probably the best way of treating incorrigible criminals would be to subject them to lengthened terms of imprisonment, and do all they could in the way of moral training combined with labour to form in them habits not easily broken, and which might render them at all events less dangerous to society when the term of their imprisonment had expired. He could not help thinking that, looking to the spread of education among the lower classes, and the many opportunities that now offered for the exercise of honest industry, the evil feared would be much less in reality than it was in apprehension.
VISCOUNT DUNGANNONwould not go so far as to say that there was no instance of hardened criminals becoming reformed through such means as those referred to by his noble Friend, but thought the cases were extremely rare. He was afraid that the measure now introduced by Her Majesty's Government would be anything but satisfactory to the public at large. For his part it seemed to him of little importance whether hardened criminals were sent to Australia or any other place, if they could be usefully employed abroad; but he was convinced in his own mind that they ought not to be retained in this country.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that in the present state of their Lordships' House it was hardly worth while to prolong what, if it was not the penal servitude, was the solitary confinement of his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
§ House adjourned at Half-past Seven o'clock, to Monday next Eleven o'clock.