PRISONS—CONVICT DISCIPLINE—ADJOURNED DEBATE.

HC Deb 04 June 1847 vol 93 cc138-72

Order of the Day for resuming the Adjourned Debate, on the Question that the Speaker do leave the Chair for the House to resolve itself into a Committee on the Prisons Bill, read.

MR. EWART

said, the real question before the House, was the system of transportation. On that subject he agreed with a great part of what fell from the hon. Baronet the Member for Southwark (Sir W. Molesworth), on the previous evening, and with the principles of the able report of his Committee on Transportation in 1837. The congregating of masses of criminals together had created evils unexampled in the frightful category of history, — abominable, unutterable, and worse Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived. They might as well hope to have health and physical vigour in a locality where the concentrated virus of some fearful pestilence had been accumulated, as to expect that where they collected gregariously a vast amount of crime and evil, they could entertain a reasonable hope of reforming criminals. All the accounts which they had received from the penal colonies wore unanimous in describing the condition of the convicts as most deplorable; and upon that account he hailed with gratification the prospect of a great and salutary change in this important subject. So strong was his impression of the evil of the system at Van Diemen's Land, that he had thought it his duty to bring a measure forward, directed with a view to check the evil. The House was counted out on that occasion; hut now they found the Government of the present day bringing forward the very measure which the late Government had permitted the House to be counted out upon. With the general principles of the measure introduced by Her Majesty's Government he coincided; and he ventured to differ from them only where they departed from the principles they themselves entertained. The main principle of the plan was right, but they had departed from it in some of the details. It was intended to abolish the aggregating of criminals together abroad; but it seemed as if the system would be re-established at home. He approved of the Pentonville system of separate confinement, and he disapproved of the system of making the convicts work together in gangs in the colonies; because he considered that system destroyed the advantages inculcated by the solitary principle pursued in prison. Upon this ground he objected to any congregating system which was calculated to bring the prisoners into close and injurious contact with each other. If they congregated prisoners, after taking them from gaol, in probation gangs, they destroyed the salutary principle of the separate system. The sound principle was to dissort them one by one, and to spread them as widely as possible throughout the colony. It had been said that the system of assignment had its good characteristics. It was good inasmuch as it carried out the separate system, but no further. It was beneficial, because, when the convicts were deported, they were assigned individually, and not collectively. There were two objections raised by the noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Mahon), who said that if they did away with transportation, they would abolish the salutary fear of transportation. For his part, he considered, if it were intended to convey any such fear, the punishment ought to be clearly defined, and not left a vague uncertainty. The noble Lord had quoted the opinions of the Judges in support of his argument. He had great respect for the Judges; but although he was willing to defer to them in matters of law, he was not at all disposed to attach much weight to their opinions on matters of general and comprehensive legislation. The noble Lord also compared this proposal to the system that had so long prevailed in Franco—the bagnes—in the establishments at Brest, Toulon, and other ports; but he could not think Her Majesty's Government would establish such a system hero. It was not only most revolting to humanity, but had been exploded by all the legislators and philosophers of France. By sending men from the prisons where they had been subjected to a reformatory discipline, to join those masses of criminals, the effects of that discipline were soon eradicated. It was said, that men who had been isolated under the separate system, had been found incapable of acting afterwards in their collective capacity. He thought this a trifling objection, as the men soon re-acquired their social habits, as they learned from the conduct of the convicts in New South Wales, and were able to act gregariously again. Several Governments had appointed Commissioners to inquire into this subject; and, after the fullest investigation, the Belgian, the American, and our own Government, had come to the conclusion that the separate system was the best mode of punishment, if, combined with inflicting adequate penalty for crime: the object was also the reformation of the criminal. He would beg hon. Members not to confound separate with solitary confinement. The convict was not shut out from communion with those whose instruction and whose habits of life and moral discipline were calculated to effect an improvement in his condition and ways of think- ing; and it was yet a question if the strictness of the solitary imprisonment might not, by degrees, be relaxed with the best effect as an amendment was perceived in the conduct of the prisoner? On these grounds he would give his support to the measure. He objected to some of the details; but he believed the principle to be sound, and in every way worthy of experiment. He supported this measure, first, because it was founded on the principle of discipline; secondly, because it embraced the principle of separating the convicts one from the other; next, because it introduced a system which did not forbid hope; and lastly, because it would develop all that was good, while it would tend to eradicate all that was evil in the character of the criminal. It was a step in the right direction; and he gave the Government every credit for having entered upon a path which would open the way to innumerable advantages to society.

MR. G. W. HOPE

would address himself to this subject with no intention to object captiously to the course which had been taken by Her Majesty's Government, and with no other disposition than to assist in overcoming the very serious difficulties which had been found to attend every attempt at legislation on this question. Before, however, proceeding to the discussion of the real question before the House, he hoped he might be excused if, as briefly as possible, he adverted to the charge which had been made the previous evening by the hon. Baronet the Member for Southwark (Sir W. Molesworth), against the noble Lord (Lord Stanley), under whom he had had the honour to serve. He had listened to the speech of the right hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey), who opened the subject, with the greatest satisfaction; and he had expected, after the very able and impartial statement of the right hon. Baronet; after the reference made by him to the difficulties surrounding the question; and after he had pointed out the course which had been taken by the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) in the earnest endeavour to overcome those difficulties, that the hon. Baronet the Member for Southwark would have spoken with more candour of the efforts his noble Friend had made for that purpose; and he had been surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman charging the noble Lord with indifference and negligence as regarded evils which, from the commencement to the close of his career as Colonial Minister, so far from neglecting, he had been most anxious to avoid and to remedy—which he did mitigate—and which, if he did not remedy, he failed so to do, from no want of ability or attention, but from the naturally insuperable character of the difficulties themselves. He would rest the justification of the noble Lord, not on the testimony which he himself personally might be able to bear to his exertions, but upon the evidence of impartial persons totally unconnected with the noble Lord, whoso opinions would be found in the papers which had been referred to by the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Home Department. Had those papers not been already largely quoted, he (Mr. Hope) would have felt bound to detain the House by reading extracts from them; but as they had, he was glad to be able to spare their time by not doing so; and he appealed with confidence to their contents—to the facts apparent on the face of them—to show, that from the moment the noble Lord entered the Colonial Office, to the moment when he retired, he had given the closest and most constant attention to that very subject of transportation to which the noble Lord was most unjustly alleged by the hon. Baronet to have been indifferent. The noble Lord entered office in the latter part of 1841; early in 1842 this subject engaged his attention. The noble Lord found the probation system established; but in order to improve it, he matured a plan which, in the working of some of its details, might not have been successful, but which it was admitted failed of success solely in consequence of deficiencies on the part of the agents to whom it was necessarily entrusted to be carried out. The hon. Baronet had said, and of course had a right to say, that the noble Lord must be held answerable for the conduct of those agents whom he appointed; that was a responsibility which could not be eschewed by any Ministry; but it was no less true that a Minister could only select those who on full and impartial inquiry appeared fit for the post for which they were designed, without reference to personal favour or influence; and having done that, and given them full and clear instructions, he must necessarily rely upon them to carry out those instructions in detail, depending—unless shown cause to doubt their integrity—upon the reports which they forwarded to him for a knowledge of the manner in which they performed their duties. The hon. Baronet would not contest that statement; and as a Minister could not avoid being deceived sometimes in the selection of an agent, it was not reconcileable to equity or to any common-sense notion of justice, whatever might be the strict legal rule, where every care had been taken by him in the selection of an agent, to hold him morally responsible when the conduct of that agent came under public reprehension. To pass, however, from the personal part of the hon. Baronet's speech to that on the question itself, he must say the hon. Baronet, when stating the plan of the noble Lord, did not appear to have paid that attention to the right hon. Baronet who preceded him, of which his speech was so well deserving; and this was to be regretted, because, had he done so, the hon. Baronet would not a second time have gone over the grounds exhausted by the right hon. Baronet, or have attacked the noble Lord, as he (Mr. Hope) contended he had done most unjustly, after the general review of the subject which had been given by the right hon. Gentleman. He repeated that he did not feel under the necessity of entering upon the particulars of the plan after the full reference made by the right hon. Baronet to the voluminous despatches which had been laid on the Table of the House. He trusted only that hon. Gentlemen who took an interest in this question had read those despatches; if they had, they would know the difficulties which the noble Lord had had to surmount in dealing with it, and they would know also the mode in which he had dealt with it; and with that knowledge he would leave it to them to say whether or not he had discharged faithfully the duty which had been confided to his charge. He (Mr. Hope) had promised the House not to travel over the details of the system established by his noble Friend, and he would not do so; but, as showing the feelings by which he was guided, and the foundation on which it was based, without any intention to impugn the proceedings of preceding Secretaries of State, he begged to call the attention of the House to the fact appearing in the despatches, that the noble Lord was the first who introduced as the foundation of his plan a regular system of religious instruction for the convict. The deficiency in this respect had first been supplied by the noble Lord. Under the system of assignment, it would, perhaps, have been impossible to adopt such a plan; but the hon. Baronet had fallen into an error in stating, that Lord Stanley had established the probation system. The noble Lord had in fact succeeded to that system: it had originally been adopted by Lord J. Russell, no doubt under a pressure of circumstances which left him little choice and little time to arrange it; but unquestionably Lord Stanley had found it most defective in the point he had alluded to as in others; and though his noble Friend had not established it, yet under his directions, if obeyed, every precaution would have been had recourse to, to give it a fair trial; and before any charge was made against the noble Lord, in reference to the want of success which had resulted, it should be remembered that he had not invented the system: he had found it in operation, and, imperfect as it might be, it would confessedly have been much more imperfect had it not been for his alterations and improvements. It was with great reluctance, while on this point, that he felt himself called upon, in justice to his noble Friend, to refer to the melancholy circumstances connected with Sir E. Wilmot. The facts had, however, been published in the papers before the House; and no objection could be taken to his quoting from them, to show that his noble Friend was altogether free from the blame imputed to him in such strong terms by the hon. Baronet, on account of alleged inattention to the accounts received by him of the working of the system. It would be found, that to the last moment of the administration of Sir E. Wilmot, even in the despatch dated the 10th of July, 1845, the reports received from him at the Colonial Office, were of a decidedly favourable character. In the despatch of last year—a period, it would be recollected, at which he was in a position freely to find fault with the system if it had excited his disapprobation, the conviction he expressed was, that, with the exception of some deficiencies, to which he had before made allusion, the probation system, as improved by Lord Stanley, was the best that could be introduced to attain the end in view. Now he would ask, if it was fair, while despatches such as these were being received, to charge his noble Friend with negligence or indifference, because he did not overturn the whole system thus described as in operation, and substitute another in its stead. With regard to what had been said by the hon. Baronet as to the unfortunate mismanagement at Norfolk Island, he could only state to the hon. Baronet that it was the duty of the Governor administering the government of Van Diemen's Land, to inform himself of the progress of affairs at Norfolk Island; and that it was only in this manner the Secretary for the Colonies could obtain any information relative to that settlement. The same reports were received of the state of Norfolk Island, as were continually received of Van Diemen's Land; and no reason was given to his noble Friend to suspect the real state of the case. That these reports were fallacious, he (Mr. Hope) had now not the slightest doubt. It was now established by official investigation, that its true state was very different from that which it was represented to be. Doubts had arisen in the mind of his noble Friend on the receipt of the despatch dated September, 1845, already referred to by the right hon. Baronet, as to how far these official reports were correct; and he immediately took steps to authenticate the statement made to him in contradiction of the tenor of the official information. He used every exertion to obtain an accurate description of the real state of the island; and the reports he elicited bearing upon the subject were now before the House. It would be obvious, however, that there was the greatest necessity of receiving with caution statements such as those which had been made to his noble Friend, and which had been made the subject of investigation; and though it was made an accusation by the hon. Baronet, that the noble Lord had not acted on the information laid before him, every hon. Gentleman at all acquainted with ordinary reports from the colonies, was aware that there was usually found the utmost difficulty in obtaining such trustworthy statements as to justify the Government at home in relying on them without ample corroboration. He was ready to admit that the appointment of Major Childs had not been a good one. [Sir W. MOLESWORTH: Hear.] The hon. Baronet cheered as if an error was confessed; but let the hon. Baronet hear the history of that gentleman. Major Childs was an officer in the Marines, and the situation to which he was appointed was one not greatly coveted. It was the situation of a gaoler in the Pacific, in a position to deprive him of all society and to separate him from all his friends. The noble Lord had searched in vain for a considerable time for a man who would accept of such a post; Major Childs was willing and was recommended to him as a gallant officer, as having been remarkable through life for the strict discipline he maintained, and for the tact he had invariably evinced in the direction of the conduct of those under his charge. He (Mr. Hope) did not know on what they could rely in the appointment of a public officer, if not on the recommendations of those acquainted with his previous history and services, and yet not concerned in his promotion. If, after every precaution had been taken and every inquiry made into his character, the officer proved unequal to his duties, it could only be looked upon as one of those misfortunes which it was impossible to guard against, and which, however often they occurred, could be no guide for the future. His noble Friend had suffered in this case from such a misfortune; but, he repeated, it was from no want of care in the selection of the officer whoso conduct was in question, who had been chosen solely because, on authority on which his noble Friend thought he could rely, he was represented as peculiarly fitted for the post. With regard to the plan now proposed, as detailed by the right hon. Baronet, he must in the first place remark upon a most material change in it, as now stated from that originally brought forward in the other House of Parliament. According to the statement then made, he understood it was intended that hereafter all convicts should proceed, after undergoing a certain process of reformation in this country, to the colonies as holders of conditional pardons—that was, that they should proceed in the condition of exiles, forbidden, as the only restriction on their liberty, to return to this country during the term of the sentence passed on them. The effect of this would have been to make all convicts on transportation free men, with the single exception that they would not be permitted to return to any place within the four seas, during the term of their sentences. But according to the plan now adopted, some of the convicts, as had been explained by the right hon. Baronet, would leave this country with tickets of leave, not conditional pardons. Now the House ought to be aware that the difference between conditional pardons and tickets of leave was one, not merely of form, but of substance. The party receiving a conditional pardon ceased to be a convict; the person obtaining only a ticket of leave remained still a convict; the ticket might at any time be withdrawn, and he would again become liable to convict discipline as a prisoner. The effect of this change was most important as regarded both the colonies and the convicts themselves. As regarded the colonies, it had this most serious consequence, that, receiving convicts on these terms they must continue or become penal colonies. The essence of the system was in the power to withdraw the ticket of leave for misconduct, and send the holder back to a severer system of discipline. But to carry out such a system, penal establishments must be maintained. Now, this altered the whole character of the plan: it made it a modification and continuance, not an abolition of transportation. He by no means stated that as an objection. According to his (Mr. Hope's) views, it was the reverse, because as regarded the convicts, they would retain what he considered most important—a power of punishing them in case of insubordination or misconduct. In support of this view he had high authority. The right hon. Home Secretary appeared, in the proposal he had made on this subject, to have been influenced by the report of the Legislative Council of New South Wales. It was well known that the colonists of New South Wales never assented to the view taken by the Transportation Committee, but were always in favour of the system of assignment; and the right hon. Baronet appeared to him to have overlooked one very material feature of that report. The Legislative Council did not profess a willingness to receive all persons holding conditional pardons; but the classes they proposed to take were young delinquents who had committed first offences, after little or no probation; convicts who had committed graver offences, after a probation proportioned to their crimes; convicts, under some circumstances, at the commencement of their sentences; and convicts from Van Diemen's Land with tickets of leave. It was obvious that the Legislative Council of New South Wales were ready to receive holders of tickets of leave, though they would not receive persons holding conditional pardons, because the former class were subject to discipline and coercion, from which the latter were exempt. Their authority was one distinctly in favour, not of the abolition, but of the modification of transportation. This brought him to the points which he wished to urge on the attention of the House. They were three. He contended, first, that nothing could be effected at home in convict discipline, which, could not be effected in the colonies; secondly, that there were advantages for carrying it out in the colonies, which could not be obtained here; thirdly, that there were disadvantages in carrying it out here, which would not exist there. There was, no doubt, one strong point in favour of the system proposed by the Government, as compared with the old plan of transportation, in the check and control which it was proposed to maintain over the working of the system by close inspection in this country. He admitted this; but in doing so he gave the Government the benefit of the only advantage which could even be alleged in favour of carrying out a convict system at home. He said "alleged," because he considered the difficulty of effecting the same end in the colonies by no means insuperable—in fact, quite the reverse; for he believed that, merely by a more liberal expenditure, the difficulties with regard to the want of efficient superintendence in the colonies might almost certainly be overcome. The superintendence of the convict colonies was a charge of the utmost importance, which ought not to be confided to second-rate men: it should be committed to the highest class of public officers; but, in order to induce such individuals to undertake a charge of this nature, they must hold out to them some adequate remuneration. The hon. Member for Montrose was apt to carp at the expenditure of Colonial Governments. [Mr. HUME: The expenditure of Government at home.] He was glad to hear the hon. Gentleman's disclaimer. It was absolutely necessary, in order to secure good officers for carrying out this system of transportation, that a high rate of remuneration should be given. If this were done, he saw no reason why as efficient a superintendence might not be maintained in the most distant colonies as at the Isle of Portland or at the Isle of Wight; and he was glad to find that the hon. Member for Montrose was ready to support his views. He considered that, among the evils of the present system, there were none which might not be remedied by efficient and active superintendence; which brought him to the two other points he urged, viz., that he believed that nothing could be effected in this country with a view to remedy those evils, which might not with equal ease be accomplished in the colonies; and that there were advantages in the colonies, which did not exist in this country, with respect to any system of convict discipline. The evils which had been referred to as connected with the present system, appeared in truth to have arisen from the want of the commonest diligence, activity, and care, in the superintendence and management of the convicts; they had arisen from the want of precautions which it was the special duty of those who were intrusted with the control of the convicts to have adopted—from want of separation, watching, employment, and accommodation. Strange to say, there appeared to exist in the colonies to which the system had been extended, the opposite evils of want of accommodation in point of buildings, and want of employment for these convicts; and it did seem to him most extraordinary that they should receive from the superintendent of a penal settlement a statement that he did not know how to afford employment to the convicts, while there was a considerable deficiency in the number of buildings required for their reception, and an admitted abundance of materials fit to be used in their construction. If the evils of the system arose from such simple causes—and that they did arise from them was apparent from the papers before the House—he considered that they might be remedied without any great difficulty. In support of this view he would refer the right hon. Home Secretary to the authority of Mr. Latrobe, than whom it would be admitted no one was more competent to give an opinion on the subject. Mr. Latrobe, in a letter contained in the correspondence last presented to the House, after stating that he did not wish unnecessarily to magnify evils, the existence or growth of which might be attributable to the present system, added, "I am far from thinking that even the gravest may not be successfully combated." He (Mr. Hope) did not wish to place himself in a position of antagonism to the Government on this question; but he would call upon them to consider whether the opinion which they seemed to have adopted—that the evils of the present system could not be remedied, except by a total abandonment of transportation, was a just conclusion. He believed that those evils might be remedied by a proper system of seclusion and separation: for such a system he was prepared to contend that much greater facilities existed in the Australian colonies than in this country. And, first, as to seclusion in this country: they were compelled to have recourse to an artificial seclusion by the building of prisons; but in Van Diemen's Land there were numerous situations where the means of seclusion were already provided by nature; and whereas the risk of attempting to escape would be infinitely great in proportion to the hardship of the punishment, the inducement to attempt escape was proportionably diminished. In Van Diemen's Land, with a population of about 60,000, they had an area nearly as largo as that of Ireland, with 8,000,000 of inhabitants; and there were numerous spots, secluded not only from intercourse with all civilized people, but—which was not the case in other Australian colonies—from all contact with the aboriginal inhabitants. And, next, he would ask whether it would be more difficult to carry into effect in Van Die-men's Land the second great requisite to which he had referred—the system of separation—than it was in this country? He contended that it would not. In Van Diemen's Land they had a superabundance of unemployed labour; and they had an abundance of materials; and it appeared to him that if there was any want of proper employment for the convicts, they could not be better engaged than in the erection of buildings for their own separate accommodation. He said "separate accommodation," because, although it was not his intention to impugn the merits of the separate system (he believed it had been productive of very great benefit); yet he thought the House should not be carried away with the idea that, in the working of the separate system, as carried out in all its strictness at Pentonville, they had such a complete cure for crime as entitled them to rely with confidence upon its operation in all cases. It struck him, on reading the reports on this subject which were in possession of the House, that too much had been said in favour of the absolute certainty of the reformation produced by the separate system alone. According to his views, convicts were softened by it to an unnatural extent—their improvement was not tested as it ought to be to ascertain how far it was real by some contact with the world. On referring to the account of the exiles sent out two years ago to Port Philip, it appeared that many of those convicts who bore the best characters at Pentonville, and who were distinguished for good conduct during the outward voyage, had turned out much worse than their fellows after being landed as free men in New South Wales. One of the convicts stated in a letter, printed in the papers laid before the House, that those who had been the greatest saints at Pentonville prison, were the worst characters at Port Philip; and that, had they been left at Hobart Town, where those supposed to be unreformed had been left, and had some who were left there been taken to New South Wales instead, the latter would have done much more credit to the discipline of Pentonville. This statement was fully borne out by the reports; and he considered that to launch these persons at once into temptation, without any controlling power, after they had been subject for a considerable time to the restraints of confinement under the separate system, was not giving that system fair play. He thought the House would agree with him in the opinion that it was most important some intermediate stage of probation should be interposed. And he was prepared to maintain that for the purpose of affording any such intermediate stage, the colonies supplied facilities not to be obtained elsewhere. It was, in fact, possible, only he believed by means of that mixed system—by liberty granted, liable to be forfeited by misconduct as carried out under the probation and ticket of leave system—a system which obviously it would be in vain to attempt to act upon in any, except a society expressly constituted, for the purpose, as was the case in a penal colony. And this brought him to the last consideration he had to offer to the House, viz., that there were disadvantages in carrying out a system of convict discipline in this country, which did not exist in the colonies. And first, as regarded the power of separation, it appeared that in this country, if that system were adopted, about 2,500 additional cells would be immediately required for the reception of prisoners. The right hon. Gentleman said, that he had 500 cells in the Pentonville prison; and Major Jebb calculated that there were 1,000 cells in the county prisons applicable to the purpose. But this plan must come into operation immediately; and, in order to carry out the system, it would be necessary to find accommodation for the separate confinement of at least 4,000 persons annually. The right hon. Gentleman calculated that he would only have about one year for each; but taking the time at eighteen months, the period for those not behaving well, there might be about 6,000 persons to provide for; and here came a practical difficulty in the question—how was the expense to be met? If there was no objection to the system, how was the money to be provided? For his own part, he could have no objection to grant the money if it would be productive of proportionate good. He came then, however, to the second stage of the proposition, which appeared to him to be beset by a difficulty beyond the mere financial considerations. In the colonies they had the advantages of a productive soil, a great field for labour—they had the terror of the consequences of escape, and all temptations to attempt it, were far removed, the possibility of ever reaching home being very doubtful. But in the Isle of Portland, or in the Isle of Wight, where the convicts were within a few days' journey of any part of the United Kingdom, the case was different. This was a difficulty which in the minds of the convicts they never could overcome. It had been said that the Judges had expressed an opinion favourable to the abolition of transportation. Such was not the case. None of the Judges, in the evidence which they had given before the Committee of the House of Lords, had stated that the sentence of transportation could be dispensed with. He believed that all the Judges were unanimous in the opinion that no sentence could have an effect on the minds of convicts similar to that of being sent out of the country. One of the Judges, indeed, had said, "transportation as it was at present carried out" should be put an end to; but it was only as at present carried out. He regretted that the evidence to which he alluded was not before the House. But let the House consider well the probable effect of the home system as intended by Government. If it were difficult to anticipate how the proposed system would work in this country, they might refer to the example of a neighbouring nation, namely, France. He was not aware that our criminals were less daring or less dexterous than those of France. In France there existed means of coercion which were not to be found in this country. In France there were fortresses, which, however doubtful their benefits in other respects, were, in regard to the surveillance of convicts, unquestionably advantageous. In France, too, there was a much larger military force than in this country. Yet what was the case there, even with all these advantages? Not only had the convicts loaded guns pointed at them during work, but such was the difficulty of controlling these masses of convicts (he had it from an eye-witness), that they slept on long benches—some hundreds on each bench—and at the end of every bench stood a sentry with a 12-pounder cannon loaded, and a lighted match in his hand. Was that a system which would be tolerated in this country? [Sir G. GREY said they were about to alter that system.] Possibly they might; but the French were not deficient in invention, and yet up to the present time they had found that that was the only safe system which could be adopted towards their criminals if they wished to keep them under due control at home. And he did not know where to look for a Government more enlightened or more disposed to treat their criminals as humanely as was consistent with the safety of the country than was the Government of France. And yet what was the state of things in France with regard to their criminal population, notwithstanding all these precautions? Why, the districts in which the criminals were punished were frequently in the greatest degree of confusion, and almost revolution, in consequence of the criminals breaking out of their gaols; and frequently whole villages had to be put under martial law for the purpose of enabling the Government officers to secure the runaway convicts, who brought moral contamination with them wherever they went. He would say distinctly that such a system would never be tolerated in this country. But the custody of these convicts while under discipline, difficult as it would be to effect, would be a minor difficulty compared with what would be experienced in connexion with the proposed plan, in the disposal of convicts after the expiration of their terms of imprisonment. They should be kept under the eye and control of the Government, even after their liberation; and that could not be done so well at home as in the colonies. He wished to know what was the course intended to be taken with regard to those convicts whose good conduct at the public works would not entitle them to the indulgence of a ticket of leave? Were they, notwithstanding, to be liberated? If not, what was to be done with them? But, assuming the plan of the Government to work well, how were those who had deserved indulgence to be disposed of? According to their plan, by being sent to the colonies; and in that he agreed. He held, that one main feature in a reformatory system was the removal of a criminal from the country in which he had been convicted, although he knew, in ex- pressing this opinion, that he differed very widely from the hon. Member for Southwark (Sir W. Molesworth) and the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Ewart). He hold it to be most important—for the convict, as opening to him a new field, free from the influence of former associates and the stigma of former bad character—for the country, as carrying off into a wider field those streams of labour—tainted, no doubt—which, though they must continue, if pent up in narrow limits at home, polluted themselves and were the cause of pollution in others, yet dispersed over a more extended range would at once fertilize it, and themselves become purified. When the example of France was looked at, with reference to the treatment of convicts, they had warning enough against the adoption of the home system. He need not repeat to the House the difficulty experienced there by even those best inclined to reformation of the convicts whose sentences had expired; but he would direct attention, as regarded the community at largo, to the circumstance, that there, with a population of 34,000,000, there were but 7,961 convicts withdrawn from it, as shown by the official tables; whilst in this country, with a population of only 24,000,000, there were no less than 50,000 convicts under sentence, or who had been removed to the colonies; leaving, therefore, as regards the great object of removing contaminating influences—taking into account the fact that the convictions in France exceed rather than fall short of the same proportion to the population which they bear in this country—this remarkable difference in favour of our system, that we have been relieved from criminals in a proportion at least six fold greater than have the French. Great, however, as were the advantages of transportation to the mother country, far be it from him to contend that it ought to be persisted in to the detriment of the colonies. The great difference in the effect upon a new country, however, from that upon the old, from the collection of criminals, it must be remembered, arose from the wide field for labour; and he could not give a fairer or a fuller answer as regarded the general effect of the system of transportation upon the penal colonies than by referring to the immense progress which had been made by New South Wales. If that system had been so substantially bad as it had been represented, those colonies could not possibly have progressed so wonderfully as they had in prosperity; they had prospered indeed to an extent quite unknown in the history of modern civilization. New South Wales, which about forty or forty-five years ago was almost unpeopled, had now a population of 150,000, and her exports amounted to between 1,000,000l. and 2,000,000l. annually. Mr. Baker, a barrister, who visited Sydney and Melbourne in 1844, in a work published the following year, stated— Sidney has a population not far short of 30,000; and though it has one, and sometimes two, of Her Majesty's regiments stationed there, and a great many sailors from all parts of the world are always to he seen in it, yet it is one of the most orderly towns a traveller can visit. I witnessed neither the brawl, nor the drunkenness, nor the shameless prostitution which so often shock and offend our own streets, whilst the only beggars I met were the two blind men previously mentioned. Another proof of the prevalent order of the town, is the general decorum observed on the sabbath. On the whole, great credit is due to the authorities for their excellent government of a population amongst whom might be expected much disorder and unseemly immorality. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir G. Grey) had described the system of transportation to be productive of insecurity of life and property in the colonies; but if they referred to the evidence of the Rev. Mr. Fry, in the papers on the Table of the House, they would find that he states— I gladly declare that the statements in that paper (a paper in closed) of the wonderful tranquillity, security, and good order of the colony of Van Diemen's Land, are completely true, and that the condition of the emancipists—tickets of leave and probation pass holders—is not inferior to that of persons in the same stations and occupations in England or elsewhere; that the presence of convicts has not a seriously demoralising effect upon the habits and manners of the free inhabitants, male or female; and that instances of reformation and of respectable conduct in the convicts are very common, and delightful to witness. And again— As a proof of the benefits of transportation, I may mention that I have married above one hundred discharged convicts within the past year, and that I believe the great majority of them are living in a condition equal to that of persons in similar stations in England. He (Mr. Hope) quoted Mr. Fry because he considered him the best possible witness, as being himself an opponent and not a supporter of the existing system of convict discipline. Taking, then, into account the comparative advantages of both systems, he did not think a case had been made out to justify the total abolition of transportation. Before abandoning the system of transportation, he thought they should have tried the effect of a new and improved system of convict discipline in connexion with it; and for that purpose the Government in fact had found ready prepared, had they chosen to avail themselves of it, the colony of North Australia, by means of which they might at once have effected what he admitted was required, the relief of Van Diemen's Land from immediate pressure: that done, he saw no reason why its prospects should not revive, believing, as he did, that our Australian colonies had arisen to their present state of prosperity, not in spite of, but in consequence of their foundation as penal settlements. In conclusion, he would say that he did not find fault with the Government for endeavouring to effect a change; but his object was to forewarn them, for forewarned was forearmed. The fact was, let them adopt what course they would, they must do so only as a choice of difficulties, and a choice of most enormous difficulties. It was one of the consequences of crime that it entailed not only upon those who were immediately affected by its commission, or who were to be punished for its committal, the direct evils which flowed from it; but, apparently as an inducement to invent means of preventing rather than punishing it, it entailed indirect evils upon society at large, flowing from the very modes themselves by which it was sought to be punished.

MR. E. DENISON

had at one time entertained very great fear, from what had occurred in another place, that transportation was to be abolished, and that after a certain system of probationary punishment in this country offenders were to be sent out as exiles, as free men, in fact, left to their own discretion and without control, and to be lost in the mass of free emigrants. He could hardly express the relief it was to him to find that the plan had been revised, and corrected, and improved, in the manner stated by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir G. Grey), and that transportation was not to he abolished, but retained, and, it might be hoped, made more effectual; that offenders were to pass from this country, still under the supervision of the law, as convicts with conditional par-dons, or with tickets of leave. The improvement was so great, that after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, he (Mr. E. Denison) was ready to confess at once that his apprehensions were removed, and that he now contemplated the proposed plan with cordial approval. He should say, however, that the experiment which had been tried at Norfolk Island, by Captain Maconochie, had been passed over too lightly. Captain Maconochie had, by acting, as it was described, rather on the hopes than the fears of the convicts, in fact, began his reign by a sort of holiday. The principle laid down was, that the convicts were not to be considered as persons wholly incorrigible, or altogether evilly disposed. Now, it should be remembered that the persons with whom that gentleman had to deal, were men who had been twice convicted and twice sentenced to transportation: first, from this country to Van Diemen's Land; and again, for additional crime, from Van Diemen's Land to Norfolk Island. Should such a scum, which had thus twice been east up to the surface of society, be designated as men not to be considered altogether evilly-disposed persons? He disagreed with the hon. Member for Southwark (Sir W. Molesworth), who had stated on the previous evening that transportation had no terror for people in this country. That hon. Baronet laid great stress upon the report of the Committee appointed in 1837; but that Committee allowed that "the average amount of pain inflicted upon offenders by a sentence of transportation, was very considerable;" and that "in the rural districts it was regarded with terror." As to the objection of its unequal or uncertain operation, that defect would apply to all punishments that could be devised. The hon. Baronet made much of the great names on that Committee; but the report could hardly be offered to the House with their united weight. In 1837, the Committee sat fourteen times, but Lord J. Russell attended only once, and Sir R. Peel only twice; in 1838, they sat eleven times, and Sir R. Peel attended but once, and Lord J. Russell not once. At one sitting, only five Members were present, and at several there were only six; so that, under such circumstances, he did not think the report of that Committee could be offered to the House as one supported by the united force of all the important names attached to it. As to the necessity of retaining the punishment of transportation, in the papers before the House there would be found a despatch from Mr. Gladstone to Sir C. Fitzroy, dated May the 7th, 1846, in which it was stated— Public opinion has demanded and Parliament has enacted the abolition of the punishment of death in almost all cases, except treason, murder, and the infliction of wounds with a murderous intention. Hence the importance of an effective secondary punishment has become greater than at any former period. Yet, transportation is the only such punishment to which it has been found practicable to resort. For the present, at least, it forms an indispensable part and adjunct of the penal code in its mitigated form. By doing away with transportation, the United Kingdom would be deprived of the only effective secondary punishment, in reliance on which the punishment of death had been discontinued. The opinion of Mr. Baron Alderson had been cited, as unfavourable to transportation; but this is what that learned Judge said— I look upon transportation as a proper punishment to be retained. It is a balance of evils, and the less evil is in retaining it. Lord Denman's opinion against dispensing with transportation, was well known. Mr. Justice Erie gave it as his opinion— I think transportation has a strong effect in repressing crime, and is more penal than imprisonment here is ever likely to be. The dread of transportation has appeared to be in proportion to the intelligence of the prisoner; —a very important matter, now that we were proposing to extend education. The opinions of Mr. Justice Wightman, Mr. Baron Parke, Mr. Justice Patteson, Mr. Justice Maule, Mr. Baron Rolfe, and several of the Irish Judges, might all be cited to the same effect, in favour of transportation as a punishment much dreaded by criminals. The Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland —"regarded it as a restraint of the greatest possible weight on the great bulk of mankind. …. In some instances the effects of transportation seemed to be the immediate and complete repression of the crimes for which it was inflicted. I mention in Scotland the acts of violence and rioting by workmen in 1842, and railway rioting with great and inhuman violence in the spring of 1846. Sentences of transportation in two or three appropriate and bad cases, at once and immediately in a most remarkable manner repressed all such outrages.….I believe nothing could compensate for the abolition of the punishment of transportation.…. I am firmly impressed with the conviction, that imprisonment generally is a punishment which has no terror for the bulk of offenders, and does not operate in deterring others from crime. Lord Cockburn and Lord Moncrieff expressed similar sentiments. In Ireland, the Judges had delivered similar opinions. Baron Pennefather said, he did not think the punishment of transportation ought to be abolished, as it was absolutely necessary to the preservation of life and property in Ireland; and Chief Justice Doherty and Baron Lefroy had spoken to the same effect. There was only one subject upon which he had to express any difference of opinion between himself and his right hon. Friend. It was with regard to the ticket-of-leave men, and those receiving conditional pardons; and he probably should not say that even upon that point there was a difference of opinion. But he could not help thinking that his right hon. Friend ought to direct his attention to that branch of the question, with a view to its improvement. A convict, such as the plan proposed to give unlimited freedom to, would be almost a free agent. He would refer to the opinions given by persons conversant with the condition of the penal colonies, and particularly that of a gentleman who had been in the position of Comptroller General, Mr. Hampton, who, in a report dated the 26th October, 1846, had stated that he thought it would be well if the conditional pardon could be made revocable for the future on the arrival of the convict at the colony, for some of the persons most highly recommended on going out, were found after their arrival to be amongst the very worst. Many of those recommended convicts were persons who had made themselves useful in the prison, and exhibited great symptoms of penitence and good behaviour; but so soon as they got their freedom they gave loose again to their propensities. He thought that a strict control ought to be kept over those convicts. Bad men might congregate together on their passage out, and lay plans for keeping together after their arrival and settling themselves in the towns. He thought that a plan somewhat similar to that adopted in the case of the boys sent to Parkhurst prison, might be extended to the convicts. The boys were sent out under the charge of superintendents, and were apprenticed out; but a careful supervision was still kept over them. A similar sort of apprenticeship or hiring out might be adopted with the men, and by that means a supervision could be maintained over their actions and proceedings. They could be prevented from congregating in the towns, and compelled to disperse into the country. In a despatch from Port Philip, dated November 19, 1846, it was stated that so great was the want of labour, that a distribution of 299 men among employers had scarcely made any impression on the demand for servants. Another communication urged that if a sufficient supply of free labour could not be sent, the convicts might be sent again; and the writer, though looking with repugnance on the old system, expressed the firm belief that the results would be in three years to restore the prosperity of the colony, to revive the land fund, and, through that, the means of free emigration. If a system of apprenticeship were established, a sum of 30,000l. or 40,000l.. might be raised by fees paid for the use of the convict labour. In a communication which he had lately received from a gentleman of considerable weight and influence in the colony—he meant Mr. Hamilton—that gentleman had said, "If you cannot send us a sufficiency of free labour, in Heaven's name send us convict labour, or raise a. land fund and apply it to the promotion of a system of free emigration." Now, there were three parties whose interests were involved in the measure of transportation— the mother country, the convicts themselves, and the colony. To each of these parties he conceived it would be most advantageous. He thought it would be bad to put out of joint a system which seemed to have worked so well; but he agreed that it was very difficult for the Government to lay down any specific rule. After what his right hon. Friend had said on the preceding night, he was satisfied to leave the matter entirely in his hands, and he trusted that transportation would be made an effectual arm of the law.

SIR J. PAKINGTON

felt confident that the Government had brought forward this question with the best possible intention, but, at the same time, must remark—and he did so with regret—that the Government had brought forward this great question in a hasty, premature, incomplete, and incautious manner. The hon. Gentleman did not seem to have given the Government that consideration which it so eminently required. Their course had been a precipitate one, and they had justly subjected themselves to grave censure. In order that any change in the present system should be effectual, it ought to be fully developed at the time it was brought forward; for those changes of opinion on the part of the Government in the main features of so important a scheme, were calculated to do it irreparable mischief, and to make men distrust its utility. He agreed with his right hon. Friend (Sir G. Grey) that it was impossible to retain anything so demoralising and so thoroughly disgraceful to a civilized country as the present state of affairs in our penal colonies. He must say, however, that he did not think the probation system had had a fair trial, for it was brought into operation in Van Diemen's Land under the most unfortunate circumstances. But at the same time he must express his firm belief that no case had been made out against transportation as a whole; because, admitting that the former system of assignment was bad, and that the probation system had not been successful, he did not think it therefore followed that the transportation system ought to be altogether abandoned, or that it was not capable of being made an efficient punishment if conducted under proper regulations. He therefore regretted that Government had taken the course they had done; and he must especially disapprove of their attempting to effect a change, as in this case, in one of the most difficult and delicate duties of Government on the sole authority of the Crown, and without appealing to the sanction of Parliament. He did not think that upon this point the right hon. Baronet had acted up to his own professions as contained in his letter to Lord Grey, at the conclusion of which there was a short but important paragraph to the effect that if this new system were permanently adopted, it would be necessary to embody it in a Bill to be submitted to Parliament; and that it would be expedient to revise those statutes which made offenders liable to transportation. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman in both these positions, and he wished to know why they had been abandoned. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would say that this proposed plan was only intended as an experiment, and not as a permanent system; but, in the first place, he considered that a change of this magnitude ought to be brought forward by the Government on their own responsibility, after full and mature consideration, and that they ought to propound it as a settled system; and therefore he could not admit that it ought to be lightly dealt with as an experiment. But more than that, he would say that neither in the speech of Earl Grey in another place, nor in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman last night, was there any indication that this plan was intended to he of the nature of an experiment. But, strong as his opinion was on this part of the subject, he felt still more strongly on the second point alluded to in the paragraph—that before any change was made, it was the duty of the Government to revise the penal code of the country, and particularly those laws by which offenders were made liable to transportation. For want of such revision, he begged of the House to consider what would be the position of all persons holding judicial situations in the country. The noble Lord the Member for Hertford, in his able speech last night—in every word of which he concurred—very strongly dwelt upon this difficulty. What would be the meaning of a sentence of transportation under the proposed system but an idle form of words? Those unfortunate classes who were exposed to it would soon come to know that its real meaning was, that they should either be kept at home, with a prospect of free pardon after a limited period, or, as the other alternative, that they should be sent out to the colonies, where their families would follow them, and where they would be placed, he feared, in a better condition than that of the honest labourer who remained at home. He thought the right hon. Baronet, in his speech last night, had dwelt exclusively upon the effect of the punishment on the individual punished; and he did not sufficiently advert to its important influence in deterring others from committing crime. Whatever might be the faults of the transportation system, whatever doubts might be entertained as to its effects upon the individual himself, he had no hesitation in saying—and he had often witnessed it in his own experience—that it had the greatest possible effect in deterring others; and he did not believe that the plan which the Government now proposed could possibly exercise a terror over the class that were in danger of becoming criminals, equal to that of transportation. With regard to this plan itself, it divided itself into three parts. The first part was, that for periods extending from six to eighteen months, convicts should be kept in prison. The first portion of the sentence might be inflicted in this country. He thought they had reason to complain that there had been such a want of explanation in the speech of the right hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey) of the details of the proposed system of prison discipline, or as to the means at the disposal of the Government for carrying it out. The noble Lord (Lord Mahon) had last night calculated the number of criminals annually sentenced to transportation at 6,000; the hon. Gentleman the late Under Secretary (Mr. Hope) at 5,000; he would assume the number to be 4,000. Now, what was the extent of prison accommodation in this country? Referring to the valuable document for which they were indebted to the noble Lord (Lord Mahon), which comprised the answers to the circular sent by the right hon. Baronet to the prisons of Great Britain, it appeared that out of 133 prisons in England, there were 23 where there was no efficient system of discipline at all, and that there were 24 where the separate system prevailed. Of that system, after the experience they had had of it at Pentonville and elsewhere, he must record his conviction that it was the best that had yet been devised, and one that was capable, if duly carried out, of being rendered highly beneficial to the country. For his own part, he wholly repudiated the idea which was often advanced, that offenders were not to be reformed in prison. Let those who doubted that they could, read the history of Sarah Martin. He repeated, however, that he did not see how the right hon. Baronet was to provide the proposed prison discipline for the number of offenders who would have to be annually subjected to it. The right hon. Baronet had himself calculated that there was accommodation for 1,000. He (Sir J. Pakington) had carefully examined the returns, and he found that there were extra cells under the separate system for 1,510, exclusive of those at Pentonville and Mil-bank. [Sir G. GREY: And Parkhurst] Making the utmost allowance, he did not see how it would be possible to accommodate 2,000; yet the lowest average of offenders transported yearly for long or short terms was 4,000. In Scotland, it appeared the accommodation would be deficient, as compared with the want, to the extent of 702 prisoners. He feared, then, that the accommodation would be wholly deficient, and the separate system was one which required to be carried out in perfection. So much for the first stage of punishment proposed by the right hon. Baronet. Towards what he would call the second stage, he confessed that he entertained the most unqualified dislike; and here again he must complain of the want of information as to the means there were of putting it in force. It was most important to know what proportion of the whole sentence was to be passed in this second stage, so that when there was an addition of from 4,000 to 5,000 men annually, some idea might be formed of the whole number that might be working on these penal gangs at one time. It had been well urged, too, by the noble Lord the Member for Hertford, that it was essential to guard against the displacement of honest, independent labour, by this penal labour on the public works. Who, again, could guarantee that some of the worst evils of the old system would not be reproduced, and that those who might otherwise have been reclaimed would not become depraved by working in these penal gangs? He regretted also to have heard the right hon. Baronet state last night that there was an intention of reverting to an extension of the hulk system, more especially after the exposure that had resulted from the recent inquiries, at the instance of the hon. Member for Fins-bury. It was a system almost as bad as that at Van Diemen's Land. As to what was proposed for the last stage or period of punishment, he confessed that he could not understand it. The right hon. Baronet had not been distinct on the subject. His letter to Earl Grey said nothing of tickets of leave, but spoke only of conditional pardons; his speech of last night spoke of both. Thus it seemed some of the bad features of the old transportation system were to be perpetuated. It was radically wrong that these persons should go out to the colonies with advantages of position which were denied to the independent labourer. He regretted to have had to make these observations. He had made them in no spirit of hostility to the Government. But he must express a hope that, after the unanimously expressed opinion of the Judges, the Government would not persevere in pressing so great and important a change of a system, solely on the authority of the Crown, and without calling for the sanction of the Legislature. If they did, he should be compelled to vote against it.

MR. HUME

reminded the House that the real subject before them related not to the wide subject of transportation at large, but to the superintendence of three Government prisons, Pentonville, Millbank, and Parkhurst, by one class of individuals only. In the principle of that Bill he entirely agreed. One of the great evils of prison discipline in this country was, that in every prison there was found a different system; and his opinion was that it would be a great advantage to place the prisons under one superintendence. He had always contended that there ought to be a Minister of Justice to regulate not only all courts but all prisons. There was no civilized country upon earth in which the gaols were so grossly neglected as in England. Though he greatly objected to the system upon which transportation proceeded, he was not opposed to transportation itself as a punishment. The principle of the present Bill had his entire assent; and whenever it came to be considered in Committee, he should willingly assist in trying to improve it. In 1840, when transportation was put an end to, he expressed doubts as to the expediency of that measure; and hon. Members could not have forgotten that instantly on the announcement of that important step, meetings were hold in the colonies, and protests were entered not only against the evidence on which it was founded, but against the conclusions at which the Committee had arrived. He repeated that he did not object to transportation as a mode of punishment, but he protested against the system under which it was carried out. This country had colonies well suited for purposes of penal settlement; and it appeared to him that we lost all the benefit of those colonies by the mode in which the punishment of transportation was carried into execution. Amongst the evils of the system he might mention the great powers with which governors were invested; and therefore transportation had long been an insufficient punishment, for governors might mitigate or remit it as they thought proper. Capital punishments had recently been put down, and were we now to get rid of all secondary punishments? To this matter there were three parties—the British community, the colonies, and the criminals. Now, he would ask, were we to disregard the effect of transportation on the colonies merely because some abuses, which he contended were remediable, had crept into the mode of administering the law. The separate system would require 6,000 or 7,000 distinct cells, in order to give the plan a fair trial. It ought not to be proceeded with without a fair trial, though in this country it rarely happened that fair trials were given to anything. In the last five years the gross number of offenders arrested was 138,000, exclusive of 318,000 summary convictions, making in the whole somewhere about half a million in the course of the five years. 5,000 was the average number for whom accommodation would require to be provided if this course of discipline was adopted. Here then a difficulty at once met him in the face. There was not sufficient accommodation to adopt the separate system. It must fail, therefore, because there was not the means of carrying it into execution. So much for the first stage. With reference to the effect of imprisonment in reforming offenders, he had questioned persons who had been governors of gaols for eighteen or twenty years; he had questioned the late Alderman Wood and other magistrates of London, who had given great attention to the subject, and one and all of them were doubtful and distrustful of the possibility of reformation taking place in prisons. They all agreed that a change of locality was necessary to give them a chance of reformation. It would be quite impossible to carry out the separate system for all the prisoners who would require to be provided for, if transportation was abolished; and, such being the case, what would be the effect of so many men congregating in gangs? The result would be, that if there was a bad man in the gang, he would contaminate all the rest. He would ask too what would be the risk if circumstances should lead to outrages in this country, with so many convicts in it? Unless the scheme had some overbearing and great advantages, these facts ought to arrest the attention of Government. He feared also that it would require 10,000 or 15,000 additional soldiers to act as guards to the prisons. The scheme was altogether crude and ill-digested; and it would be impossible to carry it out. He gave the right hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey) and the Government credit for the best intentions; but he was confident they had not considered the question in all its bearings. If they were unable to provide for the convicts in the second stage, what was to be done with them in the third? If they were landed in some distant colony, and exposed to all the evils of working in gangs, where one bad man could make many as bad as himself, it was impossible for them to escape contamination; and all the advantages of separate confinement would be lost the instant they were associated in gangs. There was an absolute necessity for some line of demarcation between the different grades of punishment, and between sentences of seven years and fourteen years, and transportation for life. He begged the House to remember that New South Wales grew rich in consequence of the system of transportation, when the numbers were such that they could be absorbed into her population; and that but for this very system she would not now be sending over her 20,000,000 1b. of wool annually as she did at present to this country. As to the argument respecting the effect of the punishment on different constitutions, he thought the objection could not be remedied, for it was common to all punishments, as crime was common to all constitutions. There was no disinclination to receive more convicts. Mr. Boyd, one of the largest farmers in the island, declared he was prepared to take any number of them, and there was a much greater chance of reforming them than at home. Let them look to the effects of separate imprisonment. He understood that in Perth prison, where the separate system was carried out, the recommitments were 67 per cent. From a petition from Liverpool, which had been laid on the Table of that House, he found that within the last seven years there had been convicted 32,000 males, and 19,000 females, total 51,000; of whom, under seventeen years, there were 5,000; once convicted, 25,900; five times and upwards, 25,000. Now, just fancy in a society like Liverpool, what injury such a population of criminals must inflict, especially upon the rising generation. He had been informed by a gentleman that there was a prisoner in Tothil-fields prison who had been 180 times convicted. He found, that in the average of all the recommitments in England and France, the difference was not more than one per cent. In the prisons of France the average was thirty-three; in the galleys, thirty-two; in Belgium, thirty-three; and in England thirty-three. In England, the number of recommitments ranged from 47 per cent in London, down to 16 per cent in the distant and less populous districts. All these facts would tend to show that the assignment system was better for society and for the criminal himself. It was known that many who went abroad under the assignment system died wealthy, and left property to their families. Why, then, should we run the risk of contaminating our whole people, and retaining such a mass of vice in this country? He had always thought there was a negligence in suppressing crime in this country, and he had been anxious to see what good was derived from the establishment of the London police, which he believed to be an excellent body, and on an excellent system. Looking to the results, he had a right to affirm that a strong case was made out in favour of a good preventive police. Much had been said with respect to the state of things in Norfolk Island; but the system of Captain Maconochie, as a means of reformation, had failed, because the officer who succeeded him was incompetent and unfit. He hoped Government would reconsider this great and important subject, and correct the abuses to which it was liable, and spread the convicts over the colony, as fast and as wide as they were able. He would vote for the present Bill; but in Committee he would recommend certain alterations, particularly in the number of the Commissioners, and he hoped Government would bring in a Bill to point out what changes they intended to introduce into the system as speedily as possible.

MR. HAWES

had listened from the beginning to the end of this debate to the various speeches of hon. Members, and two considerations had pressed themselves very strongly on his mind. In the first place, he was surprised to find that the plan of the Government was regarded exclusively with reference to the interests of the mother country, and that no one had spoken of the mischievous and deadly influence which the system of transportation exercised over the colonies. If they could have wished to demoralise and degrade them, they could not have conceived a system more calculated to effect that end. It was no answer to him to advance the material prosperity of those colonies, unless at the same time they could show something like a progressive advance in intelligence, religion, and morality; and, so far from that being the case, all the accounts they had received of the effects of transportation, while it existed, in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, and, lastly, the appalling accounts from Norfolk Island, showed them that such a system must be most injurious to the interests of those colonies. The hon. Baronet on the other side of the House, who had spoken that evening so ably on this subject, had made one great admission. He said that the first stages of punishment of a convict ought to be passed in this country. But that was a distinct feature of the plan before the House; and the convict who went from hence after that probation would be in exactly the same position as the convict in the colony who had obtained his ticket of leave. [To prove the demoralising effects of transportation upon the colonies, the hon. Gentleman quoted an extract from a letter written by the Bishop of Tasmania; he also adduced the petition of 1,750 inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land against it as an instance of its failure as a punishment and its degrading tendency.] The hon. Member for Montrose had called for a well-regulated system of transportation, in which he was backed by the hon. Baronet; but for the last seventeen years experiment after experiment had been made, and successive attempts set on foot to modify that punishment, without success. The most stringent measures had been adopted to maintain discipline in New South Wales, but had failed to effect that object. Sir George Arthur, in a despatch written in 1836, expressed the most decided opinion as to the impossibility of effecting any further improvement in the system, so far as superintendence and severe discipline were concerned. It should be borne in mind by those who objected to the plan proposed by the Government, that they were exposed to considerable difficulty in continuing the system of transportation. Colony after colony had petitioned the Home Government against its continuance. Already Australia and New South Wales were excluded from its operation; and a strong popular feeling against it prevailed in Van Diemen's Land. In a memorial which had been forwarded to the Home Government by the operatives of Sydney, reference was made to the improved state of society which had been the consequence of the abolition of transportation to that colony, and great apprehension was expressed as to the evils which might be anticipated from its re-establishment. The memorialists stated that, since transportation ceased, peace, order, and morality had increased in the colony; and they prayed that Government would not run the risk of endangering these advantages by recurring to the system. But suppose that the Government should adopt the suggestion made by some persons, and found a new colony, what securities would there be against a revival of all the evils which now exist? There were none. At present, however, even the site of a new colony was undetermined. That was the scheme proposed by the late Government; but up to the present time the reports furnished showed, that to find a site was attended with difficulty, and that the one proposed was unfitted for the purpose, from the want of water. It had been said that the Judges were generally hostile to the abolition of transportation; but the House should understand that the plan now proposed by the Government as a substitute for that system had never been brought under their notice; and, besides, the opinion of those learned individuals was not of that unqualified nature which it had been represented to be by those who had hitherto spoken on the subject. Many thought that transportation could not be abolished, though they thought there might be great amendment, which, as he contended, was the Government plan; and the hon. Baronet had himself admitted that the first stage of penal discipline should he passed in England, which, even on his view, rendered additional accommodation necessary. He was prepared to show that a proper system of imprisonment at home would he more economical and more beneficial than sending the prisoners to New South Wales; and when his hon. Friend (Mr. Hume) talked of recommitments in Scotland, he must remind him that under the system of transportation, such was the crime and repetition of crime in the colony of Now South Wales, that a Colonial Judge described the population as one moving to and from the courts of justice. Mr. Miller, the governor of Glasgow House of Correction, had compared very carefully the expense of the two systems, in the Appendix to the Report on Scottish Prisons:— It will be seen that the sums estimated for the transportation, maintenance, and superintendence of 3,980 convicts, being the supposed number for the year ending 31st March, 1847, calculated for the space of four years, the supposed period of detention, amount to no less than 590,2432. 3s. 4d., exclusive of the expense of the convict establishment at Millbank, and a proportion of the expenses of Pentonville and Parkhurst, amounting, as stated in the Appendix, to 44,882l., which might legitimately be added to the cost of transportation; while the estimated expense of imprisonment of a similar number in this country for the same period, on the separate system, including interest on the cost of erections and every other charge, would be only 302,480l; showing a saving of 287,763l. 3s. 4d. in the course of four years, supposing the cost of building to be 100l. per cell; but 1,200 of the requisite number, viz., those for Scotland, would cost only 75l. per cell, being a further annual saving of 1,500l., or for the four years 6,000l. It will also appear from these estimates that the expense of transportation in the case of 1,200 convicts, the probable number removed from Scotland during a period of four years, the average annual number being 300, is 177,963l. 11s. 2d., while the cost of imprisonment, upon a fair calculation, would be only 85,200, showing a gross saving, so far as Scotland is concerned, of 92,763l. 11s. 2d., or as much as 19l. 6s. 6d. per head per annum. Such were the results of Mr. Miller's careful analysis of the cost of transportation in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land—undoubtedly as fair an estimate as could be made out; and it substantially confirmed the estimate made by the Transportation Committee in 1837–8. The cost was less in Bermuda and at Gibraltar, where the convict maintained himself by his own labour. Therefore, even in a pecuniary point of view, as a matter of expenditure, the advantage was in favour of the penitentiary imprisonment at home. The great value of the system would, however, be (and this effect had already been, in some degree, manifested), that the results would enable them to say, as until recently they could not have said, that the criminal committed to our gaols would, at least, not leave them more demoralised than when he had entered. Hitherto our prison discipline and prisons had been a fruitful source of crime. The exiles sent out from Pentonville to Port Philip, had, when employed in that colony, given the most gratifying proofs of an amended character; they had been found energetic and active labourers; and applications had recently been repeatedly made to send out any number of exiles. The experience gained at Pentonville deserved the most careful consideration. The separate system, superintended as it was, was proved to be safe; and, judging from the recent account of exiles in the district of Port Philip, it had realized all the expectations of its authors. It was upon these convincing proofs of the good effect of the system already tried, that the Government had relied in recommending a further experiment. It was granted that there had existed an urgent necessity to make a great and radical change in the mode of conducting transportation. A new colony had been proposed to be established; but there was no reason for hoping that, in the new they could take any measure to avert the evils which had arisen in the old settlement. It had been considered hopeless to attempt to amend the existing plans. The report of a Committee of the House was in favour of an extension of the system pursued at Pentonville, and the combination of such a system with transportation. The first suggestion of the Committee had been adopted. The assignment system was abolished. The evils of assignment could no longer have been endured. Did the House recollect the frequency and severity of corporal punishment under this system, the power given to the magistrates to inflict it summarily, and for the slightest complaint against a convict? The accounts of the assignment system had all the characteristics of slavery: there was the compulsory labour; the constant infliction of the lash, and the absence of all moral improvement. Against that system there was one general complaint, except from those who benefited by convict labour. Many did derive benefit from that labour, it could not be denied; but those who now advocated the revival of that system in the colony, advocated a cruel and degrading system—one he did not believe the House would ever sanction. He hoped the House would feel the pressing difficulties that surrounded the question, and reflect that if they desired to act up to the principles they professed as Christians, it was impossible any longer to continue a system that was a reproach to the national character.

Debate adjourned.