PRISON REFORM.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 68, 22 March 1910, Page 6

PRISON REFORM.

The interview with tho Minister of Justice which we published on Saturday supplies au invaluable supplement to his memorandum on prison reform which appeared a few days before. Elaborate as that memorandum was, and based as we believe it to be upon a true appreciation of the best work that is being done in this department by the most advanced reformers of other lands, it necessarily presented a somewhat abbtract and academic air. As Dr. Findlay must by this time be well aware, every new departure essayed by a cultured man who happens to be engaged in politics is apt to be disparaged as "academic" We do not think that anybody has felt disposed to disparage : the excellent work which he has underI taken in the field of prison reform, but I the ideals of his memorandum doubtless suggested to some minds a very wide divergence from what is immediately practicable. These sceptics should be comforted by the eminently practical character of the information which wa3 supplied to us by Dr. Findlay in the interview above mentioned. The man to whom an ounce of practice weighs more heavily than a ton of theory will find more solid satisfaction in the report of the valuable work that is actually being carried on at Invercargill tkan in the theories of the memorandum, but he will also find good reason in the report for taking a fur more hopeful view of those theories than he did at first. The gaoler at Tnvercargill has not been spinning theories, but putting them into practice, and the results are highly encouraging from every point of view. Vegetable gardening is the work to which he puts the prisoners under his charge, or some of them, and as the experiment has been proceeding for about four years, it ib possible to speak with confidence of its value. "Highly satisfactory, both financially and from a reformatory point of view," is the verdict of the Ministei of Justice. Each of th» men selected for the work, the older men and youths who aro unfitted for heavier tasks being given the preference, is given an acre of ground to look after, and is found (juito able to look after it well. Not merely is tho work done, and done creditably, but it is done with zest and turned to profit. A wholesncne rivalry is developed between tho diffeient gaid<ners, the keenness of v.hich is amply pioved by thr fact that, though a spell i li allowed them *t 11 p'clflck for tuorrv

ing tea, they always return to their work before time is up. Habits of industry—and industry of a kind that will tend to check what Dr. Findlay calls "that great source of crime — the desire to hang about the cities" — are thus inculcated. The prisoner is given heart and hope, and started on the high road to self-respect, self-control, and good citizenship. Financially, also, the result is very satisfactory, for Mr. Hawkins estimates that from the sale of the produce, after allowing for the cost of seed and manure, at least £75 a year can b,e realised by a good worker, which means that a prisoner co engaged is more than self-supporting. In time Dr. Findlay hopes to see the scheme extended to include the raising of fruit, poultry, and eggs ; and we should like to see dairying added to the list. An outcry from the unions against this competition with free labour in the open market must of codrse be expected ; but the unions will not waste much sympathy on the Chinaman who alone seems to make vegetable-growing an assured success, and in the> oase of dairying the export of the produce would leave the local market untouched. For /ears wa have advocated the establishment of a penal farm where shortsent«nce prisoners and vagrants could be broken in to rural labour and made self-supporting during their enforced apprenticeship, and we rejoice to think that, with the assistance of his able officers, Dr. Hay and Mr. Kayll, Dr. Findlay is likely soon to have one or more such institutions in full swing. Ihe success of Mr. Hawkins at Invercargill shows that with the right man in charge there is no reason to be afraid of failure.