The reader who has followed me through this and the preceding chapter will probably admit that the method of transportation, as it had been administered, was indeed a failure. Looking at the actual tangible results, as they appeared at that date, at an early period of the colonial history, and before years of subsequent prosperity and cleanly life had purged the colony of its one constant infectious bane, they were most unsatisfactory. Hardly any one could be said to have profited in all these years but the convicts for whom transportation had been instituted. But it had been instituted as a punishment, not as a boon; and although we cannot actually quarrel with a system which had the undoubted effect of turning large numbers of criminals into wealthy and therefore, to a certain extent, honest men, we may fairly condemn it on principle. Transportation to the antipodes was about the kindest thing we could do for the criminal class. It was, indeed, removing them to a distance from their old haunts and ways of life, but they went to a land flowing with milk and honey. After the earlier years the vague terrors of that unknown country had disappeared. Hardly a family of thieves but had one or more relatives at the other end of "the pond." Those without relatives had numerous friends and pals who had gone before. Besides which there was this distinct anomaly, that convicts were now sent for their crimes to a land which was held out as a land of promise to the free emigrant. "It not unfrequently happens, that whilst a judge is expatiating on the miseries of exile, at the same time, and perhaps in the same place, some active agent of emigration may be found magnifying the advantages of the new country; lauding the fertility of its soil, and the beauties of its climate; telling of the high wages to be there obtained, the enormous fortunes that have been made; and offering to eager and willing listeners, as a boon and special favour, the means of conveyance to that very place to which the convict in the dock has been sentenced for his crimes."
But all the arguments against transportation are now as clear as noonday. It failed to reform, except in a curiously liberal, unintentional fashion; it was no punishment; it was terribly costly; and as it was carried out was, at least for a time, distinctly injurious to the best interests of the colonies in which it took effect. Archbishop Whateley summed up the situation in forcible language in his "Thoughts on Secondary Punishment."
"In any of the leading requisites of any system of secondary punishment transportation was defective. Thus, it was neither formidable—in other words, the apprehension of it did not operate as much as possible to deter men from crime, and thus prevent the necessity of its actual infliction—nor was it corrective, or at least not corrupting—tending to produce in the criminal himself, if his life be spared, and in others, either a moral improvement, or at least as little as possible of moral debasement. Nor, lastly, was it cheap, so as to make the punishment of the criminal either absolutely profitable to the community, or at least not excessively costly. In all these requisites transportation had been found deficient, but chiefly in the most important, viz. in the power of exercising a salutary terror in offenders."
CHAPTER V THE PROBATION SYSTEM
Reform in system of secondary punishment—Convicts still to be sent to the antipodes but after passing through various stages of improvement—Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania, chosen as sole future receptacle of convicts who are to pass through probationary treatment—Real imprisonment—Removal to Government gangs—Conditionally at large—Ticket-of-leave—Absolute pardon—Development of Norfolk Island—Its degeneration—Domination of the "Ring"—Port Arthur—Convicts in excess of the resources of the colony—Ominous prospect.
We now arrive at a new stage in the history of penal legislation. The time had come when transportation was to be distinctly discountenanced and its approaching abolition openly discussed. Many concurrent causes contributed to this. Sir William Molesworth's committee, in 1837, had spoken against transportation in the plainest terms. It was condemned because it was unequal yet without terrors to offenders. It was extravagantly expensive, and most corrupting to convict, colonist, and all concerned. Last, but not least, the protest of the colonists themselves, now for the first time formulated and put forward with all the insistance that accompanies the display of a virtuous determination, could not be entirely ignored. Important changes therefore were inevitable, nor could they be much longer delayed.
In point of fact, in the matter of secondary punishments it was a return to the position of fifty years before. At one and the same moment the three latest devised outlets through which the graver criminals had been disposed of were practically closed: the antipodes, by agitation and the strident voice of public opinion; the hulks, by the faultiness of their internal management; and the great reforming penitentiary, by the absolute barrenness of results. If deportation beyond the seas were to come to an end, then the convicts must remain in the mother country. But where? Not in the hulks; that was out of the question. Sir William Molesworth had recommended more penitentiaries, as the Nabob ordered more curricles. But the country grudged another half million: there had been little or no return for that spent years before on Millbank. Then it was suggested that large prisons should be constructed on the principle of Pentonville, for ordinary offenders, while the more desperate characters were to be drafted to Lundy Island and other rocks that might hold them. A third scheme was to construct convict barracks in the neighbourhood of the dockyards, to replace the hulks; but this, which contained in itself the germ of the present British prison system, was far too radical a change to be tolerated at that time or for many years to come. All action being thus impeded and beset with difficulty, the British Government steered a middle course. It was thought that by grafting certain important so-called improvements upon the old system it might be retained. Doubtless, judged by later experience, the plan appears shifty and incomplete; but in theory and as seen at the time it was excellent. It was deduced by sound logical arguments from given premises, and had those premises remained unchanged the system might perhaps have existed longer without collapse. But reasoning on paper is not the same as in real life: one small accident will upset the profoundest calculations. The plan of "probation" which I am about to describe was admirably devised; but it failed because the conditions of the colonies varied, and because small obstacles, that were at the time of conception overlooked or ignored, grew in course of time sufficiently powerful to upset the whole scheme as originally devised.
Beyond question the task was not a light one. The Government did not shirk its duty, but it was fully alive to the difficulties that lay in the way. Speaking some years later, a member of that administration thus deprecates adverse criticism. "We could hardly hope," says Earl Grey, "to succeed at once in devising a system of secondary punishments effectual for its purpose and free from objections, thereby solving a problem which has for many years engaged the attention of legislators and statesmen of most civilised countries, and has hitherto proved most difficult for them all." But they met the question manfully, and this is what they devised.