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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 23RD FEBRUARY, 1878.
and we should not be burdened with more than we can help. Crime committed by people who come here for a few hours, a few days, or a few weeks, should not be settled on the Colony. The system of separate imprisonment would prove very salutary. It is likely to affect the Chinese, perhaps, more than most people; but we must consider the cost. The cost I consider very great. It is estimated at $95,000, and I presume it would be a hundred thousand dollars. That further entails other expenditure, and it is a serious matter when we look at this vast programme of expenditure, and I think it is desirable that it should be extended over a long period. In all accounts where sums on account only are taken it should also be clearly stated what the full amount is likely to be.
The GOVERNOR: Perhaps I may venture to ask the Surveyor General to explain to the Council our plans and estimates for providing the separate system in the Gaol.
The SURVEYOR-GENERAL:-Without entering into the question of ways and means, I would desire in continuation of the remarks which have fallen from the honourable member on my left (Mr. KESWICK), to express a word of explanation of my own on a most important subject which should not be lost sight of in dealing with this matter. I refer to the possibility of reducing the cost of this scheme proportionately with the diminished number of prisoners which we may possibly have to deal with in the event of Your Excellency's succeeding in carrying out a project of trans- portation, which, I hope, I am not indiscreet in mentioning at this Council. The Superintendent of Victoria Gaol informs us that the average number of long-sentenced prisoners is about one hundred. If these men come under Your Excellency's admirable scheme of transportation, it will be possible to reduce by one hundred the number of solitary cells we are called upon now to provide, and this would of course reduce the estimate. I hold in my hand a detailed estimate of the cost, and I see that doing away with one hundred solitary cells in the new Gaol would effect a saving of no less than $24,000 (I shall deal, for convenience sake, with round numbers), and that would bring the original estimate down to $75,000. We have all read in Blue Books and in the published literature on the subject of prison discipline how the separate system strikes at the root of crime; how prisons conducted on this principle are shown by statistics seldom again to receive into their living graves (as one may almost call the solitary cells) those who have been fortunate enough to once emerge from them. Hongkong would not form a solitary exception to a rule almost universal, and I am sanguine we may look forward with confidence to a reduction in the number of our habitual criminals by the institution of the separate system. I think, therefore, one or more of the present wings of the Gaol might at once be adapted to the separate system, and set aside for habitual criminals and the effect observed. I attach great importance to this, because if the result were so far favourable by the diminution of crime as to render it possible make another reduction of say 30 cells in addition to the 100 just-mentioned, it would render feasible the doing away entirely with what is shown in the plans as the proposed new North Block, a huge structure involving no less an outlay than $34,000, and one which, if we can do without, will reduce our original estimate of $95,000 to $60,000. On this point to render the matter intelligible to the Council, I should explain that the necessity of making room for the proposed new North Wing, makes it necessary to remove the Superintendent's Residence, the Turnkeys' Barracks, the Gaol out- offices, the Police Courts, the offices of my honourable friend opposite (Mr. MAY) and his brother Magistrate, and the Police Cells, but all these buildings may remain undisturbed, and an additional $13,000 saved, if we can make shift without the 130 cells represented by the new North Block. This last deduction finally reduces the original estimate to $48,000, or one half its original dimensions, and this is the sum of the reductions I am able to suggest in respect of the Gaol Establishment proper. But this is not all. There is another extensive undertaking which, although not connected with the Gaol, forms a part of it as it were, and must be carried out with it hand-in-hand. I refer to the long contem- plated project of the Central Police Buildings extensions. On this subject, full details are given in the report. I have recently had the honour of addressing to Your Excellency, and which will in due time perhaps be published, but I may mention, while on the subject, that the scheme for extending the Central Police Buildings was contemplated as far back as 1872 by one of Your Excellency's predecessors, Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL, upon the advice of the Royal Commission that sat that year to enquire into Police matters. If now the extension of Victoria Gaol renders necessary the demolition of the present Police Courts, it naturally follows that we shall have to seek a place for them elsewhere, and the best site will be unquestionably that on Arbuthnot Road, opposite the present temporary Hospital; it was bought in 1872, and is still the property of the Government. If these new Police Courts are erected on this site, it will be a matter of true economy to carry out at the same time the original scheme of new Police Officers' quarters, since both will be under one and the same roof, that is to say, there is room for both under the same roof and on the same site. I will not however occupy the time of honourable members by matters of detail-suffice it to say, that such a joint building as the one alluded to will cost about $18,000. But, I repeat, if the avoidance of the new North Block of the Gaol renders unnecessary the removal of the present Magistrates' Courts, there will be no need for any new fabric on Arbuthnot Road, and the $18,000 involved may therefore be thrown in among the other curtailments. Your Excellency will therefore perceive that everything hinges upon the avoidance of the new North Block, and the necessity or otherwise of this block or wing will depend upon the success of Your Excellency's proposals to Her Majesty's Government on the subject of transportation. In the face of the figures before us, we may therefore practically consider the assent of the Secretary of State to those