jlcto Zcalantr.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

APPENDIX A. TO REPORT OF SECONDARY PUNISHMENT COMMITTEE.

Auckland, Ist August, 1854. Sir, I beg to forward to you, as Chairman of the Secondary Punishment Committee, the notes I promised yesterday, I desire also to apologise for the length to which they have run, and to thank the Committee for the great courtesy they have shown me. I have the honour to be, Sir, Very faithfully yours, W. Martin. E. J. Wakefield, Esq., M.H.R., &c., &c., &c.

MEMORANDUM ON DRAFT REPORT. I believe the statements as to the number and sources of our criminal population are quite correct. Also, I must heartily concur in the hope expressed by the Committee, that some effort may be made to repress the vice of Drunkenness so frightfully prevalent in this Colony. Before considering the several recommendations contained in the Report, I wish to premise a few remarks on the fundamental principle of Legislation on Criminal matters. The main object then of all punishment awarded by the Criminal Law is the repression of crime by the dread of punishment, the reformation of the convict is not the primary object, except in no far as the term of reformation is taken in the narrow sense of u discontinuance of criminal acts, produced by the motive of fear. But even with a view to this primary object it is necessary that the punishment be not such as to corrupt and harden the criminal. For if, in the course of punish.