Question of the Merits of Transportation.
Having closed this sketch of the history of trans- portation, it may be permissible to offer a few remarks on its merits, and on the question whether its abolition, for all except the gravest offences, was an inevitable measure.
The general arguments in favour of transportation are sufficiently obvious. By removal from his old haunts and associates, and also from a country where the supply of labour is in excess of the demand, and every candidate for employment is therefore closely scrutinized, the criminal himself has a far better chance of reform in the colonies. For the very same reasons the mother-country profits by his trans- portation, and the colonies gain the benefit of his services in a state of society where manual labour is greatly wanted, whilst with good previous discipline, and if the numbers sent be moderate in proportion to the free population, the character of the convict is far more likely to be raised than that of the com- munity to be lowered. The convict, it should always be remembered, must be somewhere. If the general balance of good and evil be looked to, it is almost beyond dispute that his presence in a well- situated colony does less harm and more good than it would do anywhere else.
On the other side it is objected that the colonists are treated unjustly by introducing convicts among them, and also that it is impolitic, and even wicked, to plant in favoured regions of the globe whole com- munities of bad men. The force of the first objec- tion is weakened by reflecting on the history of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. They were founded at a great cost by this country, purely as penal colonies. The first settlers were attracted to them partly by the fineness of the climate and other good qualities of the country, but chiefly perhaps by the abundance of convict labour. At all events, to borrow an illustration from legal phraseology, it was the settlers who came to the nuisance, and not the nuisance which was brought to the settlers.
The other objection has been greatly exaggerated. Much of what has been said and written on this subject appears to have been produced under the delusion that the Penal Colonies are the scenes of
Arguments in favour of Transportation.
Objections, and the Replies.