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STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference-

C.O.885

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

3 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

No, 53.

Governor Sir H. Ord, C.B., to the Earl of Carnarvon.—(Received January 6, 1873.)

(No. 202. Straits Settlements.) My Lord,

Government House, Penang Hill, December 3, 1872..

IN my speech to the Legislative Council at the beginning of the Session I brought to their notice that, amongst the subjects of the greatest importance to the welfare of the Settlements which Secretaries of State have repeatedly urged upon the Government, and to which your Lordship had again recently drawn my earnest attention, was the state of our prisons and the inefficiency of their discipline and system of management. I stated that papers embodying the result of most careful inquiry into this subject would be laid before them, and I trusted they would be able to mature a scheme which would remove those evils of which complaint had so justly been made.

2. I am glad to be able to state that this expectation has been fully realized, and that the Council has unanimously approved of the adoption of measures calculated to place the system of prisons' discipline and management throughout the Colony on a sound basis, and has readily voted the funds necessary for giving them effect.

3. The printed papers I have the honour to inclose give a complete account of all that has been done in the matter of which the following is a brief summary.

4. The first document that was submitted to the Council was a Report of a Committee of Government Officers and gentlemen appointed by Colonel Anson in June 1871 to inquire into the subject of our prison discipline and arrangements. The Committee only reported in January 1872, and having carefully considered its Report and the comments upon it contained in various papers appended thereto, I decided on adopting the principal part of their recommendations, and instructed Captain Innes, Acting Controller of Convicts, to report the arrangements which would be necessary to allow of their being introduced in the first instance into the gaol at Singapore, and the cost which it would involve.

5. This Report and my Minute thereon were taken into consideration by the Council on the 13th and 27th June, and resulted in the passing of resolutions affirming the necessity of introducing into the Colonial prisons a better system of management and a more rigid system of discipline, and voting the funds required for effecting the necessary structural alterations in the Singapore gaol, and for providing the requisite increased establishment of warders and other prison officers.

6. The necessity of an addition to the vote for Singapore gaols, and a difficulty which arose in connection with the arrangements for cooking the food of the prisoners in it, were disposed of on the 4th and 11th July.

7. In the meantime Captain Innes had been preparing by my direction a report and estimates of the cost of the arrangements necessary to carry out the new system through- out the gaols of the Colony, which was presented to the Council on the 3rd October, and was referred to a Select Committee for consideration and report. A question was also raised as to whether it might not be advisable to sell the site of the present gaol and purchase a cheaper site for the erection of a more commodious one in the country, on which information was promised.

8. On the 15th October the proposal to erect a new gaol was negatived on considera- tion of the Report of the Acting Colonial Engineer, and on the 21st the Sub-Committee reporting on the estimates declared their concurrence in all the items which had been inserted in them with the view of introducing the new system throughout the Colonial gaols. (Their special Report on the subject was not, however, presented until the 15th November.) And finally on the 4th November the Annual Estimates for 1873, containing provisions for the whole of the new arrangements, were passed unanimously by the Council.

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