15

A.-.4

The Committee, when examining more closely the application of the system, had asked themselves whether it -would not be well to unify the two penal administrations, metropolitan and colonial. It seemed, indeed, that officials who had seen what the recidivistes were in the prisons and in the central and country penitentiaries must best be competent to control (surveiller) them in the place of relegation. The Committee of the Chamber of Deputies had originally thought so, too, but the prospect of conflicts between the two Ministerial departments concerned had caused the rejection of the plan. The Senate Committee, while admitting the question to be a delicate one, must content themselves by saying that it was one which must be left to the Government to solve. 4. Number to whom the Law would be applicable. A return from the Ministry of the Interior had shown that on the Ist October, 1883, the various penal establishments in France, Corsica, and Algiers contained 5,293 criminals who would have come under the Bill as voted by the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate Committee had accordingly taken 5,000 at that time as the approximate number for the first year, and 3,000 or 4,000 for the second; and a later return, dated last September, had shown that about 4,660 would be the number for the third year. A further return, however, now made by the Minister of Justice, at the instance of the Committee, had shown that not less than 30,000 criminals would have come under the original Bill, and about 21,000 under the amended Bill. But it had been argued within the Committee that even this number would turn out to be much less than the reality; that the growing augmentation of recidive had not been taken into account; that sentences of military and naval tribunals entailing relegation had been altogether left out; that various offences had also been omitted; that even now more than 30,000 recidivistes would come immediately under the law; that even this number only included criminals who would have to be relegated by a first sentence after the promulgation of the law, leaving out entirely numbers who, by reason of previous sentences, would be in the same category as the first; that it must now be admitted that there were more than 60,000 criminals on whom a fresh sentence would entail relegation ; and that, as it was notorious that the incorrigibles among them were never long without reappearing before a tribunal, it was not 12,000 but perhaps 30,000 who would have to be relegated in the first three years. But of what value was the return from the penal establishments ? The data were altogether insufficient. The figures really wanted were not those of criminals who would in a single year come under relegation, but of those who, having undergone previous sentences, would yet have to be relegated. If it was evidently correct that the 21,000 indicated by the Minister must be very much increased, still there was nothing to show the particular time when the criminals would come into the hands of justice, or when sentences would expire. The Committee did not pretend that the return from the penal establishments gave an exact estimate of the number that would be relegated in the first year after the passing of the Bill, but it afforded a sufficient indication, and, all things considered, it was not impossible to admit that the Government estimate approached the truth. But, even supposing that estimate to be too low, what then ? It was said that the figures proved that a law so rigorous must in a short time compel the State to relegate a total number not only much in excess of any that had been foreseen, but one all the more embarrassing because nobody could even say where or how the relegation was to be carried out. But such criticisms, if once admitted, must go to nothing less than a declaration that the law was an impossible one, and to its consequent rejection. The majority of the Committee could not subscribe to that. Even were the option of sentencing to relegation left to the Courts, it could not be admitted that, when a Judge pronounced a sentence, he had to concern himself with any difficulties in its application. Undoubtedly, the greater the number of criminals to be relegated the costlier and more difficult must be the execution of the law ; but it was precisely for that reason that the Committee thought the Government must be left to provide for the difficulties. On the other hand, the more proofs were accumulated of the number of habitual malefactors being three or four times what had been foreseen the more was the gravity established of the peril they were to society, and the clearer was the necessity for such a measure of public safety as was now before the Senate. 5. Counter Project of M. Berenger. [It is unnecessary to transcribe here the arguments by which the Committee condemn M, Be'renger's scheme for combating relapse into crime instead of resorting to transportation.] 6. Amendments moved in the Committee. One of these amendments (by M. Labiche), making a sentence of relegation optional with the Courts, had been rejected, upon a division in the Committee of six votes to three, as being contrary to the whole character of the Bill. Another (by General Eobert), preventing the relegation from having the effect of removing the relegue from the army and so releasing him from military service, had received the general assent of the Committee in principle, and had been met by a provision for the purpose; but the Government must be left to regulate its application, pending some specific provision in the recruiting laws. 8. New Amendments in the Bill explained. [Section 1, as reconstructed, defines more completely the meaning of relegation, as involving (1) internement within territories to be selected by the Government, (2) a regime to which the reMguis are to be subjected, and (3) enforced labour by all who remain chargeable to the State. Amendments in sections 8 and 12 meet the preceding proposals of Senators Labiche and Eobert, Amendments in sections 2, 4, 6, 13, 14, 15, 19, and 23 are either not material or are consequential.]