5

H.—2o

Our road-construction, road-maintenance, and sawmilling work, all directed from our Waikune Camp, near Erua, on the Main Trunk line, midway between Auckland and Wellington, has been carried on without cessation except so far as the sawmilling was concerned, some delay in that branch being occasioned by the loss of the mill by fire and the time taken in rebuilding the mill, installing new plant, &o. Our operations from the Waikune Camp now include roadmaking, accommodation-hut building, and other work for the Tongariro National Park Board. We are doing what we can to assist in providing access to this great national asset, and some of the members of the Board have been good enough to say that we have enabled an earlier start to be made than would have been possible if we had not been able to supply the necessary labour and skilled supervision in the initial stages. There is still much work to be done, but by cheerful co-operation between the Department and the Board I have little doubt that good results will be obtained within a reasonable time. Although. Mount Eden is a strictly penal prison where all our worst offenders are confined, we have continued to obtain very satisfactory financial returns within the past twelve -months from the working of our metal-crushing plant. Much work has also been carried out there in property improvement, house-building, the making of concrete blocks and concrete tiles, and in other directions. Evening schools, lectures, and general instruction have been carried on as in past years, while recreation to a reasonable extent has been provided in all the main institutions. The main development so far as new buildings are concerned has been the completion of preliminaries to enable a new trial and remand prison to be built on the Defence Reserve, Watt's Peninsula, to take the place of the Terrace Prison, Wellington. The latter prison has been obsolete for some years past, and fully ten years ago the site upon which it stands was promised to the Wellington Education Board for school purposes. An infant school has already been built on a part of the reserve adjoining the prison itself, and upon its erection and subsequent occupation by children it became obvious that the prison could not be allowed to remain permanently on the fine site it occupies, to the possible detriment of the present scholars and of others for whose accommodation the remainder of the site is very badly required. The Prisons Department is now faced with the task not only of building a new prison, but also of demolishing the Terrace Prison buildings, reducing the level of the site, and filling in a very deep gully at the back of the property to provide room for buildings, playgrounds, and all the appurtenances of a large educational establishment. Among other works carried on in the neighbourhood of Wellington have been excavations for tennis-courts on the Technical School property —formerly the Mount Cook Prison Reserve— and the erection of additional buildings at Point Hals well to provide accommodation for a Borstal institution for girls. A two-story administration block in brick, with small infirmary, lecture-room, offices, kitchen, &c, is now almost completed, while a series of cubicles, in wood, with workrooms, bathrooms, and all the necessary appurtenances of such an institution, is well advanced. Wanganui Refuge. While erecting new prisons, reformatory institutions, and other buildings for the able-bodied male and female prisoners of the State, the Department has had to make more adequate provision for the "derelicts" who are committed to its charge. This has been done by drafting all old men, or those who are prematurely old and unfit, to Wanganui, where we have a building that has for many years been used as a police-gaol for holding short-sentence local offenders. It was formerly a fully constituted prison, but its use for general commitments has been discontinued for many years. The whole place is being renovated and made suitable for its present use. For a time we used a part of the New Plymouth Prison for this purpose, but it was found that an entirely separate institution was preferable, and, in addition, Wanganui is more centrally situated to receive drafts from other centres. Many of the old men are more derelict than criminal, while others have been sentenced for a class of sexual offence peculiar to age. By housing them in one institution we are able to treat them more in accord with their age and infirmities than is possible in the general prisons, where discipline must be maintained and dietary and other rules must be on uniform lines. Wanganui is now more a refuge, or old men's home, than a prison. Separation op the " Criminal Insane " prom the " Criminal " Class. While from tho foregoing paragraphs it will be seen that the material side of our work has received close attention and that the State's interest has been well conserved, we have endeavoured, as far as possible, to keep in view the moral training of the men and women committed to our charge. Useful work and responsibility engender self-respect, and under our present system both the intelligence and self-reliance of the individual prisoner are given an opportunity to develop that was almost entirely wanting under former conditions. Evening school and classes of various descriptions provide further for the mental improvement of the educable. We have, however, arrived at a stage where further advance is difficult without some more scientific method of differentiating between individuals. In other words, in order to keep pace with the times we require something better than mass treatment. After close observation of individual cases, and taking into consideration the number of motiveless crimes that are committed and recommitted, I have come to the conclusion that many of those who offend against the laws, sometimes repeatedly, are not strictly responsible for their acts : in other words, they really belong to the class of the " criminal insane." In view of this conclusion it becomes obvious that a means should bo provided by which an adequate and proper classification or separation could be made between the real criminal or calculated offender against the law and the mentally irresponsible. Mr. L. Forbes Winslow, M.8., LL.D. (Cantab.), D.C.L. (Oxon.), &c, in his recent work, " The Insanity of Passion and Crime," has stated, " The fine line that separates insanity from reason is still finer when drawn out between crime and insanity " ; and, later in the same chapter, " Criminal insanity turns upon the commission of crime by one who can be proved to be not merely non compos mentis, but, moreover, to have a diseased brain, or one whose nervous system has incapacitated its