criminal population, I do not hesitate to assert that transportation produces very little apprehension, far less than that which should correspond to the actual suffering inflicted.

Independent of the production of terror amongst the evil-disposed generally, which is the main object of punishment, there are other but subordinate objects, which a good punishment should effect with regard to the offender himself. I will merely enumerate them. It should make it difficult, if not impossible, for a criminal to commit crime during the period of his punishment. It should so improve his moral character as to render crime distasteful to him; or, if it does not improve him, it should at least, by the experience of the suffering endured, deter him from fresh crimes after the termination of his punishment. And, lastly, it should, if possible, ultimately place him in a position in which he would not be exposed to strong temptations to relapse into vicious habits. In every one of these respects transportation is inefficient. The immense number of summary convictions of which I have already spoken, and the other criminal returns to which I shall presently refer, prove that crime is very common amongst convicts both during their period of punishment and subsequently. Even the tortures of Norfolk Island and Port Arthur do not deter them from committing crimes which cause them to be sent to those places a second and a third time. And this is not extraordinary; because such punishments degrade the human being into a brute, destroy his reflecting faculties, and leave him no other thought or wish but the immediate gratification of his appetites.

With regard to the reformation of the offender by transportation, Mr. Stephens, the late AttorneyGeneral of Van Diemen's Land, has declared "at all events, if that be one of the objects of punishment, it is on the present plan of transportation hopeless; in the existing state of things nearly all the tendencies of the plan are the other way." And Captain Maconochie asserts, "by transportation the prisoners are all made bad men instead of good; it is shown," he says, "by the official reports transmitted with his papers, that scarcely any are reformed; and human nature does not stand still if not improved, it gets worse." Every witness examined, every document laid before the Committee confirmed these positions. My examination of the effects of transportation as a punishment may be concluded with the observation that the offender at the expiration of his sentence is left in a community where I may say without exaggeration that vice is the rule, and virtue the exception.

This brings me to the next question: What has been the moral influence of transportation on the state of society in the penal colonies? An answer is afforded by their criminal returns, which demonstrate that an enormous amount of crime is committed in those colonies, the greater portion of which may be attributed to transportation. For it is evident that in communities like those of Australia, where there is a great demand for labour, where wages are high, where every man who is willing to work can easily obtain a comfortable subsistence, a large amount of crime can only be ascribed to the depraved character of the population, and not to

those economical causes which produce misery, want, and immorality, in old and densely peopled countries.

In order that the House may form a notion of the amount of crime in those colonies, I will first refer to the summary convictions in Van Diemen's Land in the year 1834. I select that year because there are materials in the despatches of Sir George Arthur from which a more accurate estimate can be formed of the convictions in that year than in any other. The House should bear in mind that the community of Van Diemen's Land was then a very small one. Its population in 1834 did not exceed 40,000, of whom 16,000 were convicts, 1,000 soldiers, and 23,000 free inhabitants; what proportion of the latter had been convicts it is impossible to say. In this small community the summary convictions amounted to about 15,000 in the year in question, amongst which there were about 2,000 for felony, 1,200 for misdemeanour, 700 for assaults, and 3,000 for drunkenness. Eleven thousand of these convictions were of convicts who are summarily punished for all offences to which the penalty of death is not attached. Some of their punishments were very severe, as about 260 convicts received extension of sentence, about 100 were condemned to the penal settlements, 1,000 to the chain gangs, 900 to the road parties, 900 to solitary confinement or the treadwheel, and 1,500 were flogged and received about 51,000 lashes. Amongst the 23,000 free inhabitants, the summary convictions were between 3,000 and 4,000. About 2,200 (that is, nearly one-tenth of the free population) were in one year fined for drunkenness;

200 were fined for assaults, and 800 for offences under colonial Acts. In New South Wales the summary convictions were nearly the same in proportion to population as in Van Diemen's Land.

A

In order to complete the account of the state of crime in these colonies, I must next refer to the criminal trials before the Supreme Court and quarter sessions. It should be remembered that convicts are not tried before these courts except for offences to which the punishment of death is attached. Therefore a great portion of the following convictions must have been of free persons. On the average of the seven years from 1829 to 1835, both inclusive, these convictions amounted every year to about one in a hundred of the whole population; an enormous proportion; as convictions in England are about one in a thousand, and in Scotland about one in thirteen hundred of the population. large portion of these convictions were for offences of the greatest magnitude. This appears from the fact that, during the period of which I have spoken, whilst the average population of the penal colonies did not exceed 90,000, the annual number of convictions for murder and attempt at murder were about 34; for rape, seven; for highway robbery and bushranging, 66; for burglary, 50; for forgery, 13; for sheep and cattle stealing, 53; for larceny and receiving stolen goods, 367. The average number of sentences of death were 132 a year; of executions, 52; and of sentences of transportation, 369. Thus in seven years, in these communities, whose population did not exceed one-half of that of Westminster, 923 persons were condemned to

death, 362 executed, and 2,586 transported, without including the convicts who were summarily transported or had their sentences extended, and who probably amounted to twice as many more. And it may be stated, on the authority of Captain Maconochie, Mr. Justice Burton, and of the criminal returns, that crime has gradually increased in those colonies in a greater proportion than population.

In order to give the House a more accurate notion of the state of crime in the penal colonies than these figures will of themselves convey, I will read a short extract from the report of the Committee, in which they calculate what would be the amount of crime in this country if our criminal statistics were similar to those of the penal colonies. They state that in proportion to the respective population of the two countries, the number of convictions for highway robbery (including bushranging) in New South Wales exceeds the total number of convictions for all offences in England; that rapes, murders and attempts at murder are as common in the former as petty larcenies in the latter country. In short, in order to give an idea of the amount of crime in New South Wales, let it be supposed that the 17,000 offenders who were last year tried and convicted in this country for various offences before the several courts of assize and quarter sessions, had all of them been condemned for capital crimes; that 7,000 of them had been executed, and the remainder transported for life; that, in addition, 120,000 other offenders had been convicted of the minor offences of forgery, sheepstealing, and the like; then, in proportion to their