The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 333, 26 July 1849, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

Be just and fear not : Let all the ends thou aiins't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

TH URSDA V, JULY 26, 1849.

A Government Gazette, issued last evening, announces that His Excellency the Governor has summoned and appointed Lieut.- Colonel Hulme, Major Matson, and Sampson Kempthorne, Esq., Members of the General Legislative Council, which is to meet on Wednesday next. As these gentlemen enter newly upon the functions with which they are now invested, it would be premature to offer any opinion on their capabilities for the discharge of their important duties in the Council. We have no doubt, however, that they will undertake the office with an adequate sense of their responsibilities both to the Crown and to the Colony, and we shall be happy to afford them any support which may be consistent with our paramount duty to the public. The military character of the two gallant officers, we need not say, stands high ; and we hope to find that they will be as judicious councillors as they have proved themselves brave soldiers in the colony with which they are connected by the closest ties. The constitution of the Council then is :—: — The Governor-in-Chief ; General Pitt, Lieut. - Governor ; Colonial Secretary ; Attorney General; Colonial Treasurer ; Surveyor-General: — Mr. Merriman ; Mr. Barstovv ; Lieut. -Colonel Hulme ; Major Matson ; and Mr. Kempthorne. This would give a preponderance of one official vote ; but as the state of General Pitts health will probably prevent his attendance, the numbers of official and non-official voices will be equal. We are informed that the old Council Chamber, which has lately been used for the business of the departments of the Civil Secretary and Native Secretary will be fitted up as the place of Meeting. This will be an obviously convenient arrangement. In the same " Gazette" we observe the Heturn of Immigration and Emigration, at Auckland, during the Qu alter ended on the 30th of June. The Immigrants were 531 : the Emigrants, 198. The details, Avith those of the other published Returns, will be found in our last page. We remark, however, that the number of emigrants to California was only 99, — far less than rumour had led many to suppose. We regard this fact as a gratifying evidence that the bulk of the population have good sense enough to prefer the quiet pursuits of safe industry here, to the precarious chances of rash speculation there*

The subject of Prison Discipline has lately excited in England a degree of attention which promises well, not only for the home country itself, but also for the colonies which, through one arrangement or another, seem destined more or less to be the receptacles of no inconsiderable portion of those who have rendered themselves liable to th« penal enactments of the law. About the commencement of the present year (in January and February last), an additional impulse was given to the investigation of the question, and a more impressive sense of its importance communicated to the public mind, by the efforts of a gentleman who has long made it his especial study, and who, if we mistake not, will be instrumental in giving direction and activity to legislation upon it, which — although the result may not, and probably will not, be the full adoption of his own opinions and plans — will yet be likely to conduce materially to the sifting and improvement of existing systems. Mr. Charles Pearson, to whom we here refer, is Member of Parliament for the borough of Lambeth (London), for which he was first returned in 1847, when a blow scarcely less felt by the Whig Ministry than the rejection of Mr. Macaulay at Edinburgh, was inflicted by his election, by a majority of nearly thirteen hundred, over the former member, the Colonial Under-Secretary, Mr. Benjamin Hawes. Mr. goes the full length of radical refrfrra principles, and wages avowed war against all state endowments of religion, the game laws, the income tax, capital punishments, &c. Those who differ from him on some or all of these topics, however, appreciate the zeal and perseverance with which he has laboured for his favourite objects, the reformatory treatment of juvenile offenders, and the general improvement of prison discipline. The situation of City Solicitor, which he has held, under the patronage of the Corporation of London, since 1839, has given him especial facilities for the accumulation of facts bearing on the various branches of the subject, and of these he has so industriously availed himself as to be able to ply a powerful artillery of those •' stubborn things" against his antagonists. Without being by any means a graceful orator, he has the valuable talent of expressing his sen* timents forcibly, to the point, and in phraseology which is frequently the more effective because it is homely and unadorned. He has morever quite enough of self-reliance and fixedness of purpose to sustain him through opposition } and on this particular question he

knows that a strong current of popular feeling runs with him, and that, indeed, his election, was greatly owing to this. We thus advert to him personally, as his name is probably new to most of our readers, but is not unlikely to become, at no distant day, familiar to such of them as feel interested in the origin and progress at home, as well as in the effect in the colonies, of the English prison and convict system. Immediately before the meeting of Parliament, Mr. Pearson delivered two Lectures on " The Relations between Punishment and Crime, and Prison Discipline and Prison Reform." After the termination of the Lectures, a discussion on the questions raised in them was continued for some nights, in presence of a large number of gentlemen interested in the subject. M. D. Hill, Esq ,Q. C, presided, and amongst those who took an active part in the debate were Mr. Pownall, Chairman of the Middlesex Board of Magistrates, the Rev. Mr. Field, Chaplain of Reading Gaol, (the arrangements of which were brought prominently forward on both sides), Mr. Rotch, a Middlesex Magistrate, the Rev. Mr. Roe, Chaplain of Horsemonger-lane Gaol, and Captain Macconnochie. We can best exhibit Mr. Pearson's views by stating the substance of a long scries of Resolutions which he proposed in the course of the proceedings, and which were ultimately adopted as the basis of petitions to Parliament and of further operations in the same direction. They were to this effect : — That commitments and recommitments to prison in England and Wales on criminal charges have increased in England and Wales during the present century upwards of four hundred per cent. [This fact, we may observe is clearly shown by other statistics of crime which are before us while we write, corroborating Sir Robert Peel's assertion in the House of Commons, that " From the first record in 1805, down to 1842, the increase in crime progressed from year to year, un'il it had extended to above six hundred per cent. ; a fact which, let us observe in passing, taken in connection with the undeniably great increase in the number of persons who can read and write, illustrates the important truth for which we contended in our last, that an advance in merely secular education may co-ex-ist with moral and social deterioration.] That, however, sixty per cent, of these crimes consisted of comparatively minor delinquencies, punished by short time sentences of imprisonment. That a large portion of the offences may be traced to habits of indolence, improvidence, and self-indulgence, and that the increase has been greatly promoted by the beauty and comfort recently introduced into gaols, and the substitution of short imprisonment for graver punishment. The elegant Reading gaol and house of coirection is specially referred to, where hard labour is excluded, cellular separation being the only punishment ; no direct means of reformation, except religious teaching, are employed ; every prisoner has a comfortable cell, with an abundance of good food, without himself making a single effort to earn it ; with ten hours for sleep, and the remainder of his time at his own disposal for instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, or some light occupation, not enjoined, but only permitted, for his recreation and amusement. That a total change of this system should take place, by rendering prisons sad and repulsive, rather than cheerful and attractive, and strictly limiting the expenditure on them to what is necessary for the health and security of the inmates ; and endeavouring to counteract the proximate causes by creating and confirming habits of industry, forethought, selfdependence, and self-control. That, although eighty-three per cent, of the male criminals are between the ages of fifteen and forty -five, when men are most fit to labour, and although the annual cost of maintaining the criminal classes in the prisons exceeds £400,000, — yet their productive labour does not realize above £30,000 ; — whereas the criminals in the American prisons entirely, and in France and Belgium nearly, not only maintain themselves, but defray the prison cost by their labour, moved by the stimulants of rewards for exertion and good conduct. That the plan of regulating the diet of prisoners, and extending or abridging their term of confinement according to their industry and conduct, (as proposed by John Howard, Archdeacon Paley, and Archbishop Whately, and systematized and exemplified by Captain Macconnochie) is sound and useful ; and that such a system might be advantageously worked in England, provided it were one of its fundamental provisions that the labour should be severe, and that more bodily work should be exacted, with less bodily comforts, than the same quantity of work could procure in a state of freedom. And, finally, (here we quote without abridgment the words of the resolution) that " there is so much palpable truth and sound sense in the proposal, that it ought to be subjected to investigation by a Parliamentary committee ; and if it shall appear that such a result, or anything approaching to it, can be realized, that measures should be taken to found establishments for carrying the project into execution ; it appearing to the meeting that a large portion of the criminal population of this country, if subjected to industrial and reformatory discipline

in the way proposed, may be transplanted as free settlers, with advantage to this over populated nation, as well as to the colonies to which they may be transferred." Many of the details included in this plan were, as might be expected, canvassed warmly, and some of the principles on which it rested were strongly questioned. The longest, and one of the ablest speeches was that of Mr. Field, who strenuously defended the system of Reading Goal, which he described as embodying seclusion as a punishment, labour as a recreation, and scriptural instruction as a corrective. Captain Macconochie's address also commanded much attention. He opposed the s^|i-ate system, as, though it made excellent prisoners, it did not fit men for returning into freedom and society ; and advocated "th c mark system," which by placing subsistence and liberty within the prisoner's leach as benefits to be earned by his own exertions, calls forth his energies, and prepares him to return to the world an improved man. The seperate and congregated systems, and that of Captain Macconochie, which he contends combines the advantages of both, will of course, still have their respective supporters ; but a large amount of public opinion will go with Mr. Pearson's general arguments, especially as respects youthful offenders. Still we must say, that whatever be the merits or demerits of the existing plan as pursued, say, at Pentonville, we believe that it does give a degree of preparation for innocuousness, if not usefulness, in the sphere whatever it may be of the prison- j er's subsequent career, which is disregarded by those — (and there aie many such) — who form their judgment of its character and operations without adequate data or consideration. The system of which the Pentonville discipline forms part, has, as our readers will re- \ member, three stages ; 1. Separate Confine- ! ment for from six to eighteen months* ; 2. Penal labour on the public works ; and 3. the transpoitation of such convicts as have passed creditably through the primary period of probation, on " tickets-of-leave," which virtually render them free : — it being, however, arranged (which was not the case in Lord Stanley's " Probation System") that convicts, whether they escape the first stage of discipline, (as those will, probably, foi the greater pait do who are sent to the hulks) ;— or are not subjected to the second, (as will be the case with well-conducted prisoners at Pentonville whose sentence is only for seven years), — ail aie to be sent to the penal colonies eventually. If we were obhjed to have " exiles" amongst us, we should certainly prefer those who had passed through these stages, to criminals who had not. But as regards ourselves in New Zealand, and other colonists, the question obviously remains untouched, — Why should we be obliged to have them at all ? There are no circumstances or conditions under which it would not be a wrong and an injury to our Colony ,to seize upon it as a leceptacle for convicts ; — none under which we should not feel ourselves warranted and bound to protest against and resist their introduction. Our immediate object in this article, however, is to present a compendious view of a movement on the general subject Avhich has engaged a large share of attention in England. We shall piobably have occasion to revert to it at another time, as there is little doubt that before now Mr. Pearson and others have raised the discussion of it in the Legislative, and vaised it in some new aspects and in the light of sedulously collected statistics. Meanwhile, let us hope that wise and good men will not confine themselves — (as too often has been the case) — to the study of Punishment, but will investigate the philosophy of the nature and causes of Crime, with a view to its prevention by moral means. Amongst these means we, for ourselves, attach primary importance to such Public Education — based on religion — as was advocated in our last.

* ''Separate" confinement is often confounded with *' solitary," but it materially differs from it, the solitude being "relieved by more frtquetit intercourse with moral and religious mstructois. and by a more liberal use of the means of improvement. The Warning and practice also of some sort of manufacture alleviates in a great degree the tedium of the imprisonment, and especially when the individual is made to understand that these thingi are intended both for his reformation and for the re-eitablishment of his character and prospects in after-life. Nevertheless, separate confinement, with all the favourable circumstances to be found in this National Prison, is felt to be a punishment of more than ordinary severity."—Chaplain'i Report of the Pentonville Prison, 1848.