-

ing and remarkable story of a discharged | fact that the relaxation of discipline was convict, who had gone to a distant part of gradually extended. When they were rethe country, where he had endeavoured, lieved from direct coercion, they were asunder a feigned name, honestly to earn his signed to a master in a remote part of the livelihood. But it happened that one of country, where they could not easily get his former associates in crime discovered intoxicating liquors, and had few bad assohim, and threatened that if he did not give ciates to mix with; also they were subject him money, he would expose him. The to severe punishment, not only for crimes man complied, gave him money; the de- they might commit, but for any irregumand was repeated from time to time, larity; while, on the other hand, the greatand he was compelled to resort to dis- est encouragement was given to industry honest practices to obtain the funds. The and good conduct. The regulations under result was that he was detected in the which ticket-of-leave men had since 1847 commission of a fresh offence, and again been sent to the colonies, had been drawn came under the lash of the law. This up with anxious and studious care to retain statement, which had been made on good all that was advantageous in the old sysauthority, showed the difficulty that such tem of assignment, whilst avoiding the men had in gaining an honest livelihood, abuses to which assignment was liable, and if discharged in this country. But it was which led to the system being condemned not only the difficulty of obtaining employ- by the Committee of the House of Comment that prevented reformation: the mons in 1838, and to its subsequent abanchange from the strict coercion of Portland donment. He ventured to say that these or Dartmoor to a state of entire freedom, regulations had been to a great extent was found to be too much for men gene- successful. On this subject he confidently rally to stand. This was the case even in appealed to the papers upon the table. the colonies. Under the first measure of The convicts who had lately been sent out 1846, the practice was to set the convicts under those regulations, had behaved in the at liberty on what were called conditional most exemplary manner. The percentage pardons instead of tickets of leave. While of those who had committed fresh offences this plan was adopted, it was found that was remarkably small, and the reports of though the majority behaved well upon the their good conduct from all parties and all whole, too many of the men thus dis- quarters were unanimous. He had reports charged, and placed entirely at liberty, not only from Government officers but from were induced to linger about the towns, settlers; and he lately saw a colonial newswhere they procured drink on easy terms, paper which contained an account of a pubgot among their old associates, and very lic meeting held at Moreton Bay, attended soon becoming as bad as ever, were again by the most respectable inhabitants of that convicted of crime. If this not unfrequent- district of New South Wales, wherein it ly happened in the colonies, how much was stated that the conduct of the men more likely was it to do so in this country? sent out with tickets of leave had been unThe convict would be under the temptation exceptionable, and that they were preferred of going to his old flash house and drinking as servants to free emigrants. In the last with his former companions, and, in course report of the director of prisons there was of time, he would fall into his old practices, an extract from a letter from Western Ausand again come under the restraint of the tralia exactly to the same effect. There law. In the colonies it was notorious that, was another very material point to be conunder the system of assignments, a very sidered, in adverting to the value of ultilarge portion of assigned persons ultimately mate removal as a means of reforming conbecame very good and respectable labour- victs. Need he point out the great difference between the condition of the convicts in the hulks, such as they formerly were, and that of the men now under punishment in such well-regulated prisons as Portland and Dartmoor? Did their Lordships remember what the hulks were? At one time every possible abuse existed in the hulks; and in spite of the rigorous and hardening punishments there habitually inflicted--in spite of the unsparing use of the whip, which was the main instru

ers.

That was the unanimous opinion of all the colonies. In the examination before the committee of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, it was stated to have been the greatest error to do away with assignments, and assemble men together in probation gangs. Whatever faults the system of assignment had, it certainly did lead a large proportion of the convicts to become good steady labourers; and this seemed, in a great degree, owing to the

ment of government, it was notorious that, I retain it as part of the punishment, and though unpaid, the labour of the convicts that the argument which represented exile was, in the opinion of every First Lord as necessary for deterring from crime fell of the Admiralty, the most expensive that to the ground. But it was not removal to was employed in the dockyards? What the colonies which was the great motive; was the state of things now? In the it was relief from the severe discipline to improved discipline of these prisons, the which the convicts were subjected in this use of the whip was almost dispensed country. If their Lordships had not visited with; whilst the actual amount of labour the great establishments where this system done by convicts, and ascertained by strict was carried on, they ought to do so, in ormeasurement, would do no discredit to the der to form a judgment on the subject; same number of free labourers. He him- and when they saw what that discipline self had seen in the prison at Dartmoor really was, and what a convict underwent, the work done in one week by a pair of they would not wonder at his intense deconvict sawyers compared with the work sire to be relieved from it. At Dartmoor done by a pair of free sawyers; and on a or Portland, the whole life of a convict was measurement, the work done by the con- one monotonous round of dreary labour or viets was found to be the most. For many seclusion. Severe labour occupied many years successive Governments had been en- hours of the day; he was confined in a deavouring to do all that could be done for small cell by himself, with no recreation the religious improvement of the convicts; but books, generally of a serious character, but that which had contributed more than with none of those sources of excitement anything else to the gratifying reform which his previous life had made almost a which had taken place, had been that, in- necessity. He had no means of indulging stead of trusting almost entirely to "fear" in drink, or tobacco, or obscene conversaas the instrument of government, they now tion, or any of those things to which conlooked to "hope" as the principal means of victs had been accustomed. When he was exercising an influence on the minds of the not absolutely engaged in labour, or in reconvicts. It is true that even formerly con- cruiting his strength for that labour by viets were told that they would be more sleep, his life was passed without any early released if they behaved well; but other relaxation or amusement than that at that time no arrangement had been which he could derive from solitary readmade by which their daily conduct and ing, or from receiving instruction from industry could be made to have a certain the schoolmaster. To be in one of those and obvious effect in determining the period great halls, with a range of iron cells of their release, and by which the expec- on each side, to know that you had four tation of this boon might be brought to hundred convicts only separated from you bear upon their minds. But within the by a slight partition, and that among that last few years, by regulations carefully multitude of men, utterly unconscious of drawn and skilfully adapted to this pur- your presence, there was not a whisper to pose, not adopted at once, but worked be heard-it was a thing which made the out little by little, as experience suggest-flesh almost to creep to consider how severe ed improvement after improvement, they that discipline must be. Knowing that had accomplished the great object of ma- human nature required some relief from king every convict feel that his daily con- constant occupation, and seeing what that duct and industry had a direct and per-discipline was, it was not to be wondered ceptible effect in improving his position, at that there should exist an intense desire and that by behaving well, and by exerting himself, he might expect greatly to benefit himself. It was by thus producing hope, and making it so powerful, that they had mainly accomplished so great and valuable a reform. But on what did this hope depend? Mainly on removal to the colony, within a limited time, with a ticket of leave. This was looked forward to with intense desire. To obtain this reward was the great motive of every convict. It might be said, if removal to the colonies was so great a reward, it was surely not proper to

to be relieved from it. It would no doubt be a great increase of the boon to be told that they would be relieved at home; but they were most anxious to be relieved from it even by exile, which was formidable to most men. That desire was the keystone of the whole reformatory system which had been established. In the case of a convict who had committed a very serious offence

one who had barely escaped capital punishment, through the Secretary of State commuting it to transportation for life-it might be quite safe to release him at the

end of four or five years, if he were removed to a distant colony, and there placed under restrictions still tolerably severe, though a great improvement on his former condition, and with the obligation of paying a considerable sum of money, and doing a considerable amount of work before he could obtain a conditional pardon. Such a man, who had committed a crime which was only distinguished by a nice shade from murder, might, under such conditions, be safely released, after four or five years, from Portland; but what would be the effect if, after those four or five years of seclusion, he were allowed to go back to his old comrades, and say, "See what I have done; I knocked out the brains of the keeper of the prison;" or, "I have been a notorious housebreaker for ten years; and, after four or five years, which I don't much care about (for that was always the language they held), here I am back again. Don't be afraid of the sentence of the law; that is the worst it can do. Join with me, and let us form another gang for breaking open houses." To allow men of this kind to return to their old haunts, would destroy all reformatory discipline. No one who knew anything at all of the criminal law would believe that this would be safe. But what was the alternative? To prolong the period of punishment. But precisely as they prolonged that period, precisely as they made very distant the period when good conduct would procure a release-precisely in the same degree did they diminish the influence of that hope which was now the main instrument of governing convicts, and which led them to behave so well in our prisons at home. If the criminal were told that, let him behave ever so well, he must continue in that gloomy retreat for ten or twelve years, it was greatly to be feared that the hope of accelerating the period of his discharge would lose its effect, and that he would not think it worth while to exert himself in the hope, of knocking off one or two days at the end of that period; and that he might as well be guilty of some breach of discipline, and enjoy himself as he could while in prison. To prolong the period of prison discipline would cut off the main source whence its excellence was derived, and would render the hope now excited in the minds of the convicts comparatively null. He need not, however, press this branch of the argument any further, for he assumed that it would be contended, by those who opposed his Motion, not that transportation

was otherwise than useful in itself and beneficial, but that it must of necessity be given up-that it was impracticable to remove from this country the thousands of convicts in our prisons who were now looking forward to transportation. He dissented, however, entirely from this view of the case; because if they were to abandon transportation, not because it was thought a bad punishment, or because it was thought to have failed, but because Van Diemen's Land could not be required any longer to receive convicts; and there was no other place to which they could be sent; then in such case the Government ought to have taken the course which had been adopted by their predecessors. He was not aware of any sufficient grounds for abandoning the system of transportation, but was willing, for the sake of argument, to concede that further removal of convicts to Van Diemen's Land should be abandoned. But granting this, what was the proper course to be adopted? He had no fault whatever to find with the despatch of the right hon. Baronet the late Secretary of State for the Colonies (Sir J. Pakington), in which he stated that he thought transportation to Van Diemen's Land ought to stop; but that Government were unable to fix the precise period at which that system should be given up, because Her Majesty's then Government proposed to submit to Parliament certain changes in the law which they thought necessary in order to effect this alteration in the criminal practice of the country, and to take time to make certain arrangements, by which this alteration might be carried out without injury to the country. This was a perfectly legitimate course, and if had been adhered to, and if the Government had come down to the House, and said that they thought that the continuance of transportation to Van Diemen's Land was unnecessary, he had no hesitation in expressing his conviction that it would have been perfectly prac.. ticable, by arrangements which might have been made, by changes in the law which might have been proposed, to put an end, at no distant period, to transportation to Van Diemen's Land, and at the same time to maintain that punishment to an extent sufficient to answer the most important purposes. He believed that they might have continued that punishment, restricting the number of offences to which transportation was applicable, and adopting the measures which were in their power of increasing the number of convicts who might

be sent elsewhere than to Van Diemen's did not before exist, that to receive convicts Land. In saying this, he did not mean was a disgrace. Were it not that this was to recommend the formation of new penal done in sheer ignorance or folly, rather settlements in the Falkland Islands, or than in mischief, those who created this in any of the still unsettled dominions of feeling would be chargeable with a great the Crown, as had been proposed. Those crime against society. But he trusted that who had given that advice could not have the inhabitants of some, at least, of our sufficiently considered what was the real colonies would learn before long how abobject to be accomplished. If the object surd was the notion that either disgrace were merely to keep convicts in the safe or injury could be brought upon them by custody and under the eye of the Govern- receiving convicts under proper regulament, there was no place where this could tions, and that on the contrary this be done so well and so cheaply as at might be the greatest advantage to a rishome. At Portland or Dartmoor, they ing settlement. He had heard that there could be separated from the population had been a public meeting at Natal, to at large as effectually as at Norfolk Is- ask for convicts to be sent there. He land; and they were immediately under hoped it was true. He was persuaded that the eye of the Government; and when if they did ask for convicts, after underabuses arose they were much more sure to going the improved system now established be detected, and a remedy might be applied in this country, and if this country treated much more promptly, than at a distance. the colonists generously, and made it no Therefore, for convicts actually under the source of expense to them, it would be an custody of the Government, he would say infinite advantage both to the colony and there was no place like home. But the mother country. That colony wanted what was wanted was a place where they an increased number of European labourers, might be discharged with safety, when and that increased number, with the supethey were qualified for freedom, with rior attractions of the gold fields, they would tickets of leave. New settlements did not not obtain, unless such means were taken answer that purpose; and had it been pro- of supplying the demand for labour as posed to discontinue transportation to New transportation afforded. Assuming, then, South Wales, when the population was al- that the Government were right in detertogether criminal, he should have con- mining to put an end to the transportation curred in the proposition. But when Lord of convicts to Van Diemen's Land, he Bathurst most wisely held out inducements should have advised them to adopt the plan to settlers to go to New South Wales, by proposed by the right hon. Baronet the the employment of the convicts; and when Secretary of State under the Government the convicts ceased to be the majority of of the noble Earl opposite. Would it be the population, the real evils of the system said that the colonies were too pressing, were at an end. It was possible that the that they would not wait, that it was neFalkland Islands might absorb a few dozen cessary to act without delay, and that the convicts with tickets of leave; and per- requisite time could not be afforded? Such haps some arrangement might be made an argument was not only unfounded in with the company that had undertaken the itself, but pregnant with mischief to our improvement of those islands, to afford whole colonial empire. No man held higher employment there even to one or two hun- than himself the doctrine, that if we would dred convicts. But this could not be car- retain our vast colonial empire, and keep ried far what was wanted was a place its different parts knit together by mutual to send convicts to where they might form affection and loyalty to the Crown, it was only a small proportion of the popula- necessary that the Imperial Government tion. The more widely they were dis- and Parliament should deal with justicepersed, and the more numerous the popu- nay, with indulgence and consideration— lation of the place they were sent to, the towards the colonies. But he utterly debetter; and he believed it was still per- nied that Government or Parliament was fectly competent for the Government to bound to yield to every demand of the comake arrangements with the colonies to lonists, whether just or not, and to listen take a limited number of convicts yearly. to every clamour, reasonable or unreasonHence the infinite mischief of the language able. Important as he thought it that we held by some persons in this country, who, should retain our colonies, he said delibein the prosecution of their wild theories, rately that it would be far better to part had created a feeling in the colonies that with them at once, than to retain them on