PUBLI
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RD OFFICE
Reference
C.O. 885
4 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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conveying into the precincts of the prison the weapons with which they designed to effect their end. The course unhappily adopted by the late Mr. Dent of ordering the revolvers which had been taken from the warders for a temporary purpose, to be locked up in the magazine when returned, instead of being distributed again among them, gave at first a terrible advantage to the mutineers. Mr. Dent paid with his life for the error of judgment which was involved in this order; and I concur with your Government in deploring the tragical death of an officer who had shown such promise of good service.
7. The immediate causes of the outbreak were such as I have described. Its remoter causes may, perhaps, be attributed to the grafting of some features of the severe system of penal discipline recommended by the Prison Commission of 1871, upon the previously existing indulgent system, and this, without taking those measures and precautions to avert resistance and resentment on the part of the desperate men affected, which prudence and experience would have alike dictated. This leads me to review in some detail the recent history of the prison question in the Straits Settlements. I would willingly have abstained from reviving the narration of transactions which are little creditable to some of those concerned in them. But the outbreak itself was of so serious a nature, and the tragical results appear to have so greatly flowed from continued apathy and indifference to sound principle, that I am led to a general review of the circumstances with reference to the future quite as much as the past.
8. While the Straits Settlements were under the jurisdiction of the Indian Govern- ment, they were used as a place of penal servitude for Indian convicts. When these Settlements were declared a Colony in April, 1867, they contained a large convict popula tion enjoying for the most part a greater or less degree of liberty, and none of them subject to discipline specifically deterrent, apart from such elements of deterrency as were involved in transportation beyond the sea. Mixed up with these Indian convicts were a number of local convicts who were the objects of the same lax discipline and indulgent treatment. As the result of correspondence between the Secretaries of State for India and the Colonies, it was ultimately agreed in April, 1873, that the Indian convict population should be removed back to India. In the meantime it had become the duty of the Secre- tary of State for the Colonies to inform himself, with a view to further consideration and action, as to the system of prison discipline prevailing in the Straits Settlements in as far as it affected the Colonial prisoners. Accordingly, on the 10th of July, 1867, the Duke of Buckingham transmitted to the Governor Mr. Cardwell's Circular despatch of 16th January, 1865, on the subject of prison discipline with the interrogatories therein originally inclosed as to the state of Colonial prisons, together with the digest and summary on prison discipline in the Colonies which had been prepared in connection with the replies already received from the Colonies, to which Mr. Cardwell's Circular had been originally addressed. These documents were accompanied by instructions to Sir Harry Ord to ascertain and report how far the state of the prisons in the Settlements and the system of discipline in operation were in accordance with the principles adopted at home, and how far they were open to objection and capable of improvement.
9. After the lapse of nearly twelve months, namely, on 2nd June, 1868, the Governor sent home answers to the interrogatorics, and having stated, as the result of them, that "the management and discipline differs mainly from that adopted at home in the absence of any form of the silent or separate systems, in the absence of provisions for religious instruction, in the general inferiority of the accommodation afforded to criminals, in the greater amount of freedom allowed, in certain cases prisoners being employed as orderlics, messengers, &c., without any direct control over their actions or movements during the whole day, and in the maintenance of the discipline of the prisoners being almost entirely carried out by prisoners themselves," he proceeds to say that "the prisoners are, as a rule, natives of India, China, Ceylon, or the Archipelago, European prisoners being never detained in these Settlements for more thon a limited period; and, bearing this in mind, it will not seem singular that an eminent authority on the subject, Dr. Mouatt, Inspector- General of Gauls, Lower Provinces, Bengal, should have spoken of the scrupulous cleanliness, perfect plan of conservancy, excellent order, well regulated system of labour ▸ and punishment, and the high standard of health attained, as being unsurpassed in any other well-regulated institutions of the same kind that he was acquainted with in Europe or in Asia. In this," observed the Governor, "I fully concur; and I consider that, though this system of management differs thus widely from that in force at home, the state of these prisons is not open to objection, nor susceptible of improvement in any material point."
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10. An analysis of the returns was prepared in the Colonial Office, which is dated October, 1868," and a despatch from Lord Granville of December following incloses extracts from the analysis, and proceeds :-"The system of discipline as set forth in this
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analysis is, as you admit in the body of your despatch, at variance with the principles of management and discipline, which a wide experience in other parts of the world has shown to be indispensable to the suppression of crime, and it is not one which under ordinary circumstances I should take on myself the responsibility of countenancing. However, when I consider that the bulk of the criminals in the Straits Settlements are Indian criminals, that it was the Indian Government which devised the present system, and that, moreover, the whole Indian establishment will shortly be removed, I do not see sufficient reason for directing any immediate change in a plan of management which, however 'inadequate to deter from crime, is approved of by the Government charged with the punishment of the criminals, useful to the Colonial Government, humane to the convicts, and well administered on its principle, faulty as that principle must be considered. While the indulgent system remains in force for the Indian convicts, it would be dangerous to introduce the more deterrent English system for the Colonial offenders."
1. Sir Harry Ord's answer of the 1st March, 1869, was a strong remonstrance against certain views having been imputed to him in the analysis of the returns, and an Parliamentary explanation of them in some particulars, in which Sir H. Ord alleged that they had been Paper, 1870, misunderstood and misrepresented. The explanations and corrections do not bear upon page 67. the question respecting the principal gaol at Singapore, with which I am at present concerned, nor is the association of prisoners in any gaols disputed. And whilst some of the views attributed by the analysis to the Governor were merely matters of inference, and were not views professed by him, as the terms used by the compiler night be naturally construed to imply, other errors were such as the confused character of the returns made almost unavoidable; and of others, again, the Governor's corrections were themselves palpably erroneous, as shown by the report of the Controller of Convicts? which he inclosed, and on which he assumed to base them. Lord Granville's despatch in reply (17th July, 1869) communicated to the Governor a Minute by the compiler, in explanation of his previous Minute, and admitted that there had been some inaccuracy Parliamentary in the previous one, assuring, him, however, that the general tenour of that previous one Papers, August (of which extracts only had been sent out) was not such as would have been displeasing 1870, page 71. to him. And Lord Granville concluded thus :-"If there was some inaccuracy to be found in the Memorandum in question, I feel sure that you will be disposed to make allowances for unintentional inexactness; and on revising the 9th paragraph of your despatch now before me, in which you assert that short-sentenced prisoners in the Straits 'work solely within the precincts of the gaol,' and collating it with the statement of the Controller of Convicts, on whose authority you profess to rest it, I think you will acknowledge that it is difficult to be at all times on our guard against inadvertency and
error."
12. From about the date of this unfortunate controversy, the question of prison reform appears not to have engaged much attention, beyond the promulgation by the Governor in Council of a new set of rules and regulations for the prisons until the spring of 1871. At that time Colonel Anson (who had assumed the temporary adminis- tration of the Government), in consequence of Lord Kimberley's circular despatch of Parliamentary 15th April of that year, appointed à Commission to inquire into the subject. The Paper, 1870, Commission reported in January, 1872, and propounded a scheme of reform. The page 74. Commission stated that "the separate system is an essential basis on which to act," and they proposed to carry it out by dividing the two long wards of the Transmarine Gaol into separate cells. The Gaol at Singapore admits, by partitions being put up in all the cooking premises (the cooking was to be done elsewhere), of a number of open separate places in which men can be employed on irksome works inside the gaol without communication, and we think these partitions should be made as early as possible The whole of the men, or a very large portion (for we look forward to the discipline very much reducing the number of men), can then be employed in separate cells by both day and night (p. 6). We recommend that in Singapore Gaol, at least four European warders, besides the superintendent, be employed, and that free native warders he engaged for service inside the gaol, in the proportion of one to every twenty men; and if this number is doubled, it will give sufficient for night duty as well (p. 7)." They estimated the average number of prisoners in the gaol for inside employment at 500, and they thought that half the fifty free warders required might be released Transmarine convicts, selected for the purpose (p. 7).
13. The Commission of June, 1871, having, thus reported in January 1872, a further term was again allowed to elapse, and after six months, the Report was submitted to the Council in June, 1872. The Council considered and approved it on the 13th of that month, and the 11th of the mouth following, and after a third period of six months (in which the local Government had been consulting the Colonial Engineer and considering how it should