CO885-(2-3) — Page 635

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TTC.O.885

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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led my predecessor to the conclusion that its vices of system were irremediable, and that it must cease to exist. In opposition to that opinion, Governor Sir John Scott brought forward an array of facts and considerations which induced my predecessor to depart from his first intention and to acquiesce in the reference of the question to a Committee of the Court of Policy.

12. I do not know what has been the fruit of the labours of that Committee, or, indeed, whether they have borne any fruit. You yourself, I observe, although you have acquainted yourself with the correspondence between Lord Kimberley and Sir John Scott, do not advert to the Committee or its labours; and your own opinion, which is in favour of retaining the Settlement, is formed upon an independent examination of the question.

13. I myself am duly impressed with the arguments in favour of the Penal Settle- ment. I recognize the grave difficulty which would arise of finding an employment for the prisoners were they removed to any other site. I appreciate the loss which the Colony would suffer were it to be deprived of the prisoners' labour in providing materials for its defences against the sen.

14. On the other hand, I am not insensible to the dangers of abuse incident to the management of a penal establishment so remote from the seat of Government; and I cannot cease to regard the records of past mismanagement and past atrocities as affording ground for anxiety in the future.

15. On the whole, since you approve the arrangement, and as so intelligent and upright an officer as Mr. Sealy is at the head of the prison, I am willing that the question should not be further stirred at present. Assuming, then, that the Mazzaruni Settlement is to remain the most important penal establishment in the Colony, and the central feature of a new system, it will probably be desirable so far to enlarge it as to make room for many prisoners who have hitherto been retained at Georgetown.

16. The latter gaol should probably also be further relieved by the removal of any coolie prisoners now confined there who have been sentenced under the Immigration Ordinance to the existing coolie prisons of Fellowship or Mahaica (which would in that case have to be enlarged), or to a new establishment similar to these two prisons, and designed for the confinement of coolies belonging to the estates more immediately in the neighbourhood of Georgetown.

17. The principles on which you should work are no doubt well known to you. They are the separation of youthful from adult criminals, by placing the former in an industrial or reformatory establishment; the enforcement of the separate system amongst adults; the establishment of penal labour by tread wheel, crank, shot drill, or similar means for prisoners in the first stage of long sentences, and during the whole or the greater portion of short ones; and, lastly, the moral and industrial training of those prisoners whose sentences are long enough to warrant the conclusion that a system of reformatory training will not be without its effect in their future disposition and mode of life.

18. You have already laboured successfully in Trinidad upon these principles; and I trust that in British Guiana you may be enabled to bring about improvements similar to those to which you devoted so much attention in former Government.

your

19. I do not doubt that you will receive the hearty co-operation of the Legislature. I have never observed in that body any disposition to view the requirements of the public service otherwise than in a spirit of intelligent liberality; and I ascribe the present state of things not to the parsimony of the combined Court, but to the fact that the require-- ments of the Colony have rapidly outstripped a provision which was perhaps not inadequate at the time it was designed.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

CARNARVON.

No. 29.

fiovernor Longden, C.M.G., to the Earl of Carnarvon.—(Received August 28) (No. 150. British Guiana.) My Lord,

Government House, George Town, August 7, 1874. REFERRING to my despatches, No. 102 of the 16th of June, and No. 115 of the 4th of July,* relative to the Penal Settlement at Mazzaruni, I have now the honour to forward six printed copies of a report of a Committee of the Court of Policy, appointed as far back as March, 1873, to investigate and report generally on the question of the removal of the Penal settlement from its present site.

• Nos. 26 and 27.

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2. The Committee, though feeling the full force of the reasons given by the Earl of Kimberley for its removal, believe that, if a recurrence of the abuses which appeared to make its removal necessary can be guarded against, it would not be desirable to remove the Settlement. Substantially, I agree in most of the recommendations of the Com- mittee, and I shall take an early opportunity of reporting the steps taken to carry thein out.

3. Though laid before the Court of Policy on the 27th of June, I only received the inclosed report from the printer yesterday. I mention this to account to your Lordship for my apparent delay in forwarding it.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

J. R. LONGDEN.

Inclosure in No. 29.

To His Excellency James Robert Longden, Esquire, C.M.G., Governor and Commander- in-Chief in and over the Colony of British Guiana, and to the Honourable the Court of Policy of British Guiana,

1. THE Report of the Committee appointed" to investigate and report generally on- the question of the removal of the Penal Settlement from its present site."

2 The Committee was first formed so far back as 3rd March, 1873, but the members of it having with one exception either died or left the Colony, without any action having been taken, a new Committee had to be named, and the present members were appointed.

3. The Committee in the first instance endeavoured to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the history of the Settlement in past years, and then proceeded to examine all those who were best qualified to give them information on the subject of their inquiry.

4. The Committee examined Captain Twyford, the late Superintendent of the Settle- ment, Mr. Sealy, the present Superintendent, the Inspector-General of Police, the Sheriff of Demerara, the Auditor-General, the Colonial Civil Engineer, the Officers of the Settlement, and several other witnesses. They also on two occasions visited the Settle- ment and minutely inspected it. On their first visit Captain Twyford was in charge, and on the second Mr. Scaly.

5. Only one person has recommended the total removal of the Settlement, and that is the Inspector-General of Police. Captain Twyford, while disapproving of the place gave it as his view that it would not be desirable to break up the Settlement as a Settlement, but reserve it for those who had passed through the penal part of their punishment at another prison. He thought it should be kept up for the purpose of obtaining stone and maintaining a Government Farm." All the other witnesses examined by the Committee have been strongly in favour of retaining the establishment at its present site. The now Superintendent entirely coincides in this opinion.

6. The situation is fairly healthy, although cases of rheumatism have been numerous, care is necessary to prevent the damp of the stone prisons having an injurious effect on the prisoners.

7. Putting aside the consideration of the great expense that the removal would entail, the Committee are convinced that the present site has many advantages, and that the separation and isolation involved in imprisonment there have a deterrent influence, and are looked on by the classes from which the majority of criminals is drawn as a serious addition to their punishment. Of this the Committee had a proof in the grief exhibited and in the remarks made by the friends of some prisoners who were being taken up to the Settlement by the same steamer in which the Committee left Georgetown on one of their visits of inspection.

8. Another important advantage of the present site is to be found in the many ways in which prisoners can there be usefully employed. If the prison was to be moved to a place nearer town the question of employment would be a very embarrassing one. Although the Committee pressed many of the witnesses on this point, no really practical suggestions could be obtained.

9. The Committee have however felt the full force of the reasons given by the Secretary of State in favour of its removal. The most serious abuses have undoubtedly occurred, and abuses have continued to occur in spite of the increased supervision that has been exercised. It therefore became necessary, if the Settlement was to be retained, for the Committee to ascertain whether an effectual remedy could be applied. The

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