The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1912. PRISON REFORM.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 3, 28 December 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1912. PRISON REFORM.

Prison reform is still occupying the mind and attention of Sir John Findlay, who while on a visit to Australia, has been expressing his ideas thereon. He stated that the leading feature in connection with his scheme had been to make the protection of the public paramount, and as far as was consistent with that object, dealing with prisoners on a reformative basis. Ho also said that his successor, the Hon. Mr. Herdman, is taking a keen interest in the scheme, and indicated full sympathy with it. On the reformatory farm the usual prison clothes were to bo dispensed with and the greatest measure of liberty allowed to those detained consistent with the discipline necessary to run the farm itself. A farm had already been purchased by the Government, buildings were in cojiirse of erection, and he had no doubt that the present Government would continue the work ho had begun. When the accommodation at the farm was ready they would probably have about live hundred young lirstoffenders there, and the aim of those in charge would be to work in such a way as would have the effect of inducing these men to return to industry and honest living. The tree-plant-ing stations had long since passed beyond the experimental stage, and were now an established success. The recidivistes among those who had passed through the tree-planting stations numbered only about half of those who had been detained in the gaols. The reformatory farm method was only a wider application of the methods that had been found to work so well on the tree-planting stations. New Zealand sincerely hopes that Sir John’s optimism in viewing this very grave question may be fully warranted by results.