REPRESSION OF BUSHRANGING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1391, 25 April 1865, Page 8

REPRESSION OF BUSHRANGING.

(From the Sydney Morning Herald, March 25.)

The passing of the bill for the repression of bushranging in the colony will be accepted by the world as a favourable sign. All vast territories where crime can be easily committed and evaded are liable

;o many such disorders. England for centurics was

tormented by highwaymen, who often exhibited the contrast of pretentious civility and sanguinary violence which we now see in our Halls and Morgana. The defective state of the police, and the bad condition of the roads, interrupted by vast common

lands, encouraged their enterprises, and enabled

them to stop the mails as a daily pastime. But the disposition of the people is not to be gathered from examples of crime. Such may be a public misfortune; they are only a dishonour when they find sympathy, vindication, and impunity.

The alarm expressed lest the bill should become an instrument of oppression is not, perhaps, unfounded. We expect it will. We should expect, also, that the Government will take every precaution consistent with the objects of the measure itself; but the blame of a misuse of such powers, when we look beyond those who are employed in their exercise, must rest with men who have broken down and swept away all the ordinary guarantees of public safety. A whole district is in the hands of the bushrangers; they have the support and aid of the majority of the residents —some, doubtless, from fear, but many from depravity. The time is come to meet danger with danger, fear with fear, and to make it the safest path to deliver up rather than to shelter an outlaw, The penalties on those who harbour these notorious murderers are severe—but great is their crime. They do not deserve to retain their property in a country stained by innocent blood, shed by those whom they succour and shield. They have enabled these men to keep out for years—to add victim to victim—to seduce all the base and weak into actual crime, and to throw families exposed to their depredations into agonies of terror. They could not have existed as many days as they have enjoyed months of impunity but for this connivance, and they are even less criminal, or at least more manly, than many who connive at andfci&litate their crimes. We are glad to have the abuse removed which permitted a notorious robber to have the fruit of his exploits to pay for his defence. The Court might, indeed, be justly allowed to assign something for the purpose, limited to the proper ends of public justice, but a bag of gold ought not to be delivered up to a notorious escort robber. The agents of the bushrangers are greatly distressed at ; the incapacitating clauses of the bill, which will hinder the money, perhaps stolen from some ruined family, goingito the lawyer who may get his Ibread in the criminal line; bat it is not our interest to cherish this branch of the profession, or pay for appeals against the Judges to the Assembly. If, for example, a member has the honour to defend a Hero like Gardiner, he should be satisfied with the distinction, and if his client is so unlucky as to be hanged, and so be unable to pay smaller debts, he must wait for the next case, and trust to his celebrity for new clients. - We suppose every villain is entitled to counsel; but when he is convicted, we ought to have done with him; and to leave money "in hand " for getting him off, stolen from the people, is a great abuse. "We commend the Government for steadily supporting a measure necessary for the rescue of the colony from a great dishonour and danger. Whatever the result of the bill, its design cannot be mistaken. It shows that the country is like other countries—that the bushranging interest, though large, is not omnipotent—and that the recovery of the district in their hands will not be abandoned. We believe, as a mere expression of public will, it must have a marked result throughout the colony on the views of the ignorant, and that it will redeem us elsewhere from much suspicion and disgrace. The voice of the Upper House has now to be heard, and we are sure that will be on the side of order and against crime. Corrections may, however, be possible; and, if made in good faith, they will be received with respect. It is false to say that the supporters of the measure are in a passion with crime, and blind to the inconvenience of such legislation; but they will not suifer even liberty to shelter systematic violators of law, nor tolerate any longer the use of forms meant to protect honest men to give security to thieves and murderers. If the measure fails, all we can say is, that one of more stringency must place these districts under a special jurisdiction, and deal with them as with people too bad or too weak to exist under the ordinary forms of political justice. We do not think it necessary to notice the absurd statements that this bill gives right to everybody to shoot anybody. The clauses have provided for the very fornial authorisation by the highest judicial authorities before such a course may be taken. If any act without authority it will be at their peril. The law does not remove the responsibility now existing, save in the case of men outlawed, and though, certainly, mistakes are possible, they are no more likely than in any other case, where the justification of force depends on the party against whom, and the circumstances under which, it is used.