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Sociétés de Patronage

Refuges.

Government cin- ployment.

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Some of our dependencies, it is said, refuse to receive any immigrants who have been convicted; but it is difficult to see how this tyrannical and discriminating injustice could be practically carried out. The discharged offender is a free man; by law he can go where he pleases; he pays his own passage, he provides his own outfit, and it would be all but impos. sible to distinguish him, either in Australia, Canada, of the United States, from the crowd of miscellaneous emigrants daily arriving. On the whole, it is probable he will be a more eligible citizen than the mass of these. The quantity of unoccupied land is so great in various quarters of the world, and the demand for labour to till so continuous, and, at times, so ravenous, that it may fairly be anticipated that the objections and diffi- culties in the way of emigration above alluded to, will be found rather theoretically formidable than practically or extensively operative. Nearly all well-disposed expirees will desire to emigrate, and all who wish should be put in the way of doing so.

For such as wish to remain at home or find insuperable impediments in the way of going abroad, much may be done by benevolent individuals or associations in helping them to employment. The first step, it must be remembered, is the only really difficult one. A man once settled can get on: a man once employed can have a character from his first employer: his antecedents need not be traced further back. No one will be disposed to undervalue the assistance that may be afforded to the discharged criminal in this way, who is cognizant of the extensive and successful operations of the numerous "Sociétés de Patronage," spread over most continental countries, for finding places for discharged criminals-an indispensable and most serviceable resource, which States unprovided with our fatal facility of deportation have long since been driven to adopt. By a well-organised system of communication between gaol chaplains and associations of this sort, a large number of expirees might be provided for, direct from the prison doors.

Others might make their first step in the new life they desire to lead, under the auspices of Refuges or intermediary Establishments, such -as that recently set on foot by Captain Crofton (Director of Convict Prisons in Ireland) at Smithfield, near Dublin, where men supposed eligible for conditional liberation are, as it were, filtered back into the world through the medium of a stage of provided employment and superviset freedom, described in his pamphlet. Their fitness for discharge and inde- pendence is here both exercised and tested; and many persons are willing to take inmates from a refuge such as this, who would scarcely have courage to try them direct from gaol,

There may still remain a certain number who cannot at once emigrate, whom no one will at once engage, and who cannot, maided, at once establish themselves in work. For these, Government might, without violating any principle of justice or sound economic science, provide temporary employment; employment not artificially created for them, but profitable and desirable in itself. In the present normal condition of the labour market, there is no danger lest honest men should be thereby superseded or displaced; and we must bear in mind that in thus facilita- ting the restoration to virtuous courses of the liberated offender, it is the interest of the community at large and not that of the criminal that we are consulting. It would only be necessary to fix the rate of remuneration sufficiently low to guard against the risk of the expiree remaining languidly or wilfully on the hands of the authorities.

It will be understood, it is hoped, that the writer claims no originality for his suggestions. If there is any merit of novelty in them, it must lie merely in the coherence of the plan, and the distinctness and irrefraga- bility of the two principles on which it is based.

W. R. G.

February 7, 1857.

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Reference -

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• 885

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