THE CONVICT QUESTION.

Evening Post, Issue 9, 17 February 1865, Page 3

THE CONVICT QUESTION.

(from the daily news.) The Government has taken a (ftlfeisive resolution on the subject which has lately so agitated the free colonies of ' Australia. It abandons its recent policy, and transportation to the Australian continent is to be entirely discontinued. Mr. Cardwell has done so much that is wise at the Colonial Office, that we should be pleased if we could give him credit for this correction of his earlier error. But, in truth, the course of the Government in Reference to this question, during the last three years, has been wanting in statesmanship, and the decision now announced, wise as it is, is only the latest manifestation of its disposition to obey the outward pressure that may happen to be stringent at the time. Two years ago, when boys carried pistols for their protection, and old women in broadcloth filled the Times with their fears, the pressure of what passed for English opinion was obeyed, and at the first mention of transportation the interests of the free colonies were Bet Aside, Now there is no excitement at home, but a prospect of much unpleasantness in our relations with the colonies, and accord' inply the wishes of the Australians are to have weight. This is not the way in which an empire should be governed. "We have now re turned to the point at .which we stood four years ago ; but what have we gained by the long circuitons transit ? All tbjit we know now we knew then. Pour years ago we knew that there were people in Western Australia ready to speculate in convict labor and in contracts for the supply of convict establishments ; and we also knew that their low and limited material interests ought not to be set against the higfeer interests of the free communities of South Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales. Four years ago we knew that to shoot out our moral rubbish upon Australian shores was an easy way of getting rid ol the criminals we had reared, and we also knew that such a use of a colony was base on our part, and by the Australians would be resented as intolerable Four years ago the language of our best newspapers on these points was enlightened and distinct. Why the wisdom which had then been acquired was placed in abeyance, and why the country has been led a dreary round, is for those to explain who, against their earlier recorded convictions, abetted the cry for transportation when a sufficient number of bewildered people were found to raise it. For us it is a source of satisfaction to remember that in the midst of the garotte panic, and from that time until now, we have consistently opposed the revival of transportation to Australia, and predicted as the inevitable end of the agitation the very concession to the demands of the colonies which is now authoritatively announced.