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occupied in part by emigrant labourers to be brought out from this country, as subsequently mentioned, and partly by the convicts themselves, when they become pass-holders or ticket-of-leave men. To all convicts who should have attained this stage might be given the option of becoming tenants of these cottages, on their paying a rent of say 2s. a-week, in advance, a rent from which an income would be derived, sufficient, as it may be assumed, very fairly to pay for the cost of building the village, and also of supporting the clergyman and schoolmaster. From the land attached to the cottage the convict labourer would be able to derive a large part of his subsistence, and he might be enabled to pay his rent, and his industry might be encouraged by the offer of regular employment at fair wages. This employment should be in making roads and preparing land for settlement, including in this preparation building the sort of temporary houses which settlers usually occupy. The advantage of finding these preparations made, and a supply of labour afforded by the neighbouring villages would probably soon attract emigrant agriculturists with capital, who would pay for these farms a price remunerative to the Government. A part of that price ought to go in introducing free labourers, in order by an infusion of wholesome blood to remove as far as possible the convict taint from the society. To the convicts might be given the right of purchasing their cottages at ten years' purchase upon half the rent; to the remainder they should remain liable, to keep up the school and church or chapel. In order that effective religious instruction might be afforded to the inhabitants of these villages, whether originally convicts or free emigrants, it would be proper that persons of the same religious denomin- ation should, so far as possible, be settled together, each village being placed under the superintendence of a clergyman of the same religious denomination as the majority of its inhabitants, and provision being made for the different denominations in proportion to their respective numbers. It would be a further part of this plan. that the convicts thus occupying cottages, should be allowed to have their wives and families sent out to them so soon as the convict himself could contribute half the cost, the In this manner public paying the other half as an advance or loan.

there would, I conceive, be an ample demand for labour provided. The inhabitants of these villages would raise food for themselves from the land; but they would want clothes and luxuries. Tradesmen and mechanics would be required to supply them, who would purchase the surplus food of the agriculturists-in short, a complete society would be formed, in which all human wants would be supplied by human labour.

But however effectual the plan I have suggested might prove in absorbing any amount of convict labour not otherwise required, I do not propose it as a scheme enabling this country to resume at any time the plan of pouring into Van Diemen's Land such an annual flood of trans- ported convicts as have recently been sent to the island. The resumption of that plan I regard as altogether impossible. Whether any more mate convicts will ever be transported thither, or to any other place, is a ques- tion which, for the present, I will reserve my opinion. But, whatever may be the ultimate decision of that question, there is a mass of convicts at present in the colony for whose treatment it becomes a subject of anxious concern to make some wise and effectual provision.

On this part of the subject I should propose to adopt a modification of the present system, combined, as hereafter detailed, with some of the suggestions of Captain Maconochie. The object to be kept in view is to combine with the effectual punishment of the offender the due attention to his moral and religious instruction, and to the formation in his character of such habits of industry and self-controul as will qualify him at the close of his period of confinement to enter on his new career with a fair prospect of being able to make his way as an honest and useful member of the community.

Refore, however, I enter upon these details it may perhaps be con- venient that I should briefly state what I conceive to be the principles of Captain Maconochie's system, and explain how far I believe him to have

been in error.

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I

Captain Maconochie considers the reformation of the offender to be the primary object of punishment; and punishment which has not this reformation in "view he calls vindictive, assuming that when not inflicted with that view it can be inflicted only from a mere spirit of retaliation. cannot subscribe to this assumption. Punishment, even when not reforma- tory, is not necessarily vindictive. It is suffering imposed by society at large on some of its offending members, in order to deter others from com- mitting the same crime, from a dread of subjecting themselves to the same condemnation. I conceive this to be not only a legitimate end of punish- ment, but its great and primary end, the attainment of which is indispen- sable for the peace and good order of society.

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Captain Maconochie proposes that a certain period, at the com- mencement of the sentence, should be passed in seclusion, and that the convict should be prepared, by moral and religious instruction for mixing again with his fellow-men. After this period is passed, the convict is, according to his plan, to enter into active life, and is to be taught to look upon himself as a debtor to the State for a certain number of marks. That debt he is to pay off by his labour, the value of a day's work being for this purpose estimated at so many marks. Good conduct, of whatever kind, is also to tell in his favour, and is to be rewarded by carrying to the credit of his account a certain number of marks, the number being deter. mined by some rule previously laid down. Any misconduct is to be punished by the withdrawal of a certain number of marks from his credit, or rather by the addition of that number to the debit side of the account. By degrees the convict having accumulated the amount of marks in which he is indebted to the State, will resume his place in society as a free

man.

Such is I think a fair statement, divested of all superfluous details, of the system proposed by Captain Maconochie. To the first part, viz.; his proposal to place each prisoner in strict seclusion for a definite time, there can be no objection, indeed I am disposed to think that it should be the preliminary step in every system of prison discipline. But to the remainder of the plan there is this serious objection, that the necessity which I cannot doubt to exist of maintaining discipline amongst convicts by the power of inflicting some prompt and efficient punishment, is lost sight of. For any act deserving punishment, Captain Maconochie pro- poses to debit the offender with a certain number of marks. But the result of this would be merely to add another day or two to the length of the sentence for each offence. That is, the convict is menaced with an evil, remote and indefinite, as the means of arresting his indulgence in some present gratification. But the mere circumstance that he is a convict, shows him to be a person more than commonly insensible to the operation of those principles which tend to make a man deny himself a present indulgence, for the sake of some future or contingent benefit. It is there- fore not likely that the preference of the future to the present, which so often is not found as an effectual motive of action in others, should operate so far upon this class of men, as to make the apprehension of a prolongation of their sentence, after the lapse of some years, sufficient to deter them from the commission of any offence to which they may at the time be tempted. Captain Maconochie's system is based entirely upon one sentiment-that of hope, to the exclusion of the antagonist sentiment of fear. Thus proceeding on an imperfect and too indulgent view of the structure and impulses of our common nature, it cannot but fail to a great extent; indeed it must

The think be held already to have done so. chief advantage of the System of Marks is, that it proposes to apply in the management of convicts, the principle of task-work to a greater extent than has hitherto been done. Of the advantage to be derived from a more extensive and methodical application of that principle, I entertain no doubt; but it is not obvious why for this purpose marks should be used at all, or why a money-value should not at once be placed upon every des- cription of work. Indeed Captain Maconochie himself, when carrying out his plan in Norfolk Island, regretted much that a definite money-value was not placed upon the marks, and stated that the absence of this definite and

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