PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TLC.O.885
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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a period of penal labour must be an element in it. But it seemed to be proved by experience, that penal labour could not be inflicted with nearly the same advantage in distant colonies, as more imme- diately under the eye of the Government. At a distance abuses of the most serious kind, it had been found, might long exist without detection; and the difficulty of securing the services of proper officers was in itself shown to be a formidable ob- stacle to the maintenance of an effective discipline at the Antipodes. It was determined therefore to endeavour to subject convicts sentenced to trans- portation to Reformatory Discipline at home, pre- paratory to sending them out to the colonies as exiles. But in carrying this plan into execution, extreme difficulty arose from the want of proper buildings and establishments, which could only be created by degrees; and this difficulty was greatly aggravated by the large increase in the number of Irish convicts during the famine of 1847. In the last two years, however, much has been done to increase the means of carrying into effect the pre- liminary portion of the sentence of transportation. Arrangements have been made by which the Go- vernment has been enabled to obtain the use of separate cells in several county prisons. An esta- blishment for the punishment of offenders has been formed at Portland, and a prison built on Bowry Island in Bermuda. A prison on the Separate system is also in progress, and I believe partly occupied, in Ireland; and a convict establishment has been formed at Spike Island.
Since the first adoption of the system of punish- ment to which I have shortly adverted, an im- portant modification of the plan has been made. Convicts, after their preliminary punishments, are not now sent out as exiles, but as ticket-of-leave holders. The reasons for this change are fully stated in my despatch of April 28, 1848, adverted to in Mr. Elliot's paper. It is unnecessary to repeat them here; and I will only observe that they in- volve no departure from the principle of the original plan.
Another measure recently determined upon, to which Mr. Elliot has adverted, appears a greater departure from the policy announced
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in 1847 and 1848; I mean the formation of a small penal establishment in Western Australia. This is not however really the case. The true object of forming this establishment is to in- crease the means of disposing of convicts when their preliminary punishment is over. Since New South Wales, and all the other colonies have made objections to the reception of convicts, to which it– has been thought expedient to yield, Van Diemen's Land remains the only colony to which they can be sent, while there are more to be disposed of than can be safely sent there. Hence it is of the utmost importance to open a new field to which they can go. But convicts with tickets of leave cannot be sent to any colony with safety, or even with justice to the inhabitants, unless there is a penal establishment to which, in the event of mis- conduct they may be returned, and unless an efficient body of police is maintained by the Home Government. The formation of a penal establish- ment will meet this object. Convicts who mis- conduct themselves when they obtain tickets of leave in Western Australia, will be returned to it, but as convicts will be sent there who have but a short time to serve, they will rapidly pass out of the custody of the Government, and will no doubt find employment from the settlers. The great difference between this plan and the plan of sending convicts to North Australia, is, that in the one there were no settlers,-no resources,-no existing Govern- ment establishment;-in the other there are all these, and an intense (though from the size of the colony, of course a limited) demand for labour. The principle of the one scheme was to keep convicts by themselves; that of the other to diffuse them in a community of which the great majority will be free, and to which care will be taken to add free settlers in equal numbers with the convicts.
Lastly, I have to remark that I do not share in Mr. Elliot's apprehensions that more convicts will re- quire to be sent to Van Diemen's Land and Western Australia than these two colonies will absorb with safety. Provided due care is taken in the industrial as well as the moral training of convicts during their period of preliminary punishment (on which every
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