The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER said, the Gentleman who had been selected in the room of Mr. Fagan was Mr. Tennent, Member for one of the largest and most prosperous towns in Ireland, Belfast. MR. SADLEIR had no doubt whatever that the exclusion of Irish Members was systematic, and he could not forget that there was not a single Irish Member on the Committee or the Commission appointed to inquire as to the best Trans atlantic station. COLONEL DUNNE moved the postponement of the Committee. He (Mr. Keogh) was sure that the hon. | to do so that he might witness the final and Member for Kinsale would recollect that the complete overthrow of the Ecclesiasthis question was brought before the House tical Titles Bill. He alluded to Mr. Fagan. last Session-and what were the facts? This was the Gentleman they had chosen; Why, that on twenty-one Committees which and upon his resignation whom did they had been appointed, not one single Irish- select? Why, the hon. Member for Belman had been selected. So much for the fast (Mr. Tennent), whose ill health or facts of the right hon. Gentleman. But some other cause would render him not a let them look at the constitution of the very constant attendant in the House. Committee. It was an unfair Committee, Now, keeping these facts in mind, he must an inequitable Committee, and that quite say this exclusion was universal, and that apart and on different grounds from the he believed it was systematically designed. exclusion of Irishmen. It was an unfair Believing this, he would join his hon. Committee to inquire into this question and gallant Friend (Colonel Dunne) in opof the Kaffir tribes. He would go through posing the Committee. the Committee seriatim. First, there was the right hon. Secretary at War; of course he represented his department. Then there was the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Granby); no one could object to him. Then there was the hon. Member for South Essex (Sir Edward Buxton) who represented, he should suppose, the aborigines. Then there was the hon. Gentleman the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. E. Stanley), whose great knowledge and experience, and the attention which he had devoted to colonial subjects, well fitted him to serve as a Member. Then there was the hon. Member (Colonel Thompson) who represented Bradford and the Reform Association. Then there was the hon. Member for Lymington (Mr. Mackinnon) very much connected with the interest of smoke in that House, and who at all events had a relative commanding a beleaguered fort in that part of the world. ["Oh, oh!"] Why, that is the reason the Government have selected him. The right hon. Secretary at War need not shake his head; a Member of the Government not half an hour ago gave it as the reason. Then there is the hon. Member for Bol-miral Dundas should be omitted. If the ton (Sir Joshua Walmsley) who represents financial reform; and then there was the hon. Gentleman who represented the Colonial department (Mr. Hawes). Why, there is not a single Irishman on the Committee; and the exclusion is not MR. KEOGH would oppose the nominaan accident, but is part of a system. tion until he knew the names of the Irish The right hon. Gentleman the Chan- Members. He protested against the Comcellor of the Exchequer says it is per-mittee altogether. He would, therefore, fectly absurd to say, that they kept support the Motion for the adjournment of Irish Members from serving on Com the debate. mittees, and instanced that they were most desirous to have an Irish Member to serve upon the Customs. And whom did they select? Why, a Gentleman who had announced in every paper in the kingdom his intention of resigning, and who only delayed VOL. CXVI. [THIRD SERIES.] Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned.' MR. HOBHOUSE seconded the Motion. LORD JOHN RUSSELL said, that he had not the least objection to any number of Irish Gentlemen serving on the Committee; and as the hon. Member for Dublin (Mr. Reynolds) said that he thought three would be a fair proportion, he was willing that the Committee should consist of seventeen Members, and that the name of Ad hon. Member for Athlone (Mr. Keogh) would allow the nomination of the Committee to proceed now, he (Lord John Russell) would upon Monday propose the names of three Irish Members. MR. HUME appealed to the hon. Member not to persist in his opposition, after the concession of the noble Lord at the head of the Government. COLONEL DUNNE was satisfied with the proposition of the Government, and en 2 B treated his hon. Friend to forego his oppo- | tached, to raise a laugh and convey a sition. MR. SADLEIR saw no inconvenience arising from the postponement of the question. They had not raised it for the mere purpose of a profitless discussion. LORD NAAS entreated his hon. Friend to give way. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) had conceded all that was demanded. LORD JOHN RUSSELL said, that if he postponed the Committee until Monday, he had no guarantee that the hon. Member would be more reasonable upon that day. meaning different to that intended. The House adjourned at a quarter before HOUSE OF LORDS, Friday, May 9, 1851. MINUTES.] PUBLIC BILLS.-1a Arrest of Absconding Debtors; Compound Householders. Reported.—Exchequer Bills; Indemnity. TRANSPORTATION OF CONVICTS. LORD LYTTELTON presented two petitions, of which he had given notice, from the colonists of Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania, as they themselves preferred to have it called, praying for the cessation of transportation of criminals to that island. The one was from the colonists in public meeting assembled, and the other from colonists of the Northern Division of the colony; and the two petitions together were signed by many thousands of persons. (Minutes of Proceedings, 46.) He had also been entrusted with a memorial to Her Majesty the Queen on the same subject, which he hoped shortly to be able to present, signed by many thousands of the women of that colony. The noble Lord said, the importance of these petitions, and the subject to which they referred, would, he hoped, be his excuse, if he troubled their Lordships MR. BRIGHT was not aware that the Irish Members had suffered, or that even any question had suffered, by the exclusion of Irish Members from a Committee, because he agreed very much with the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Hobhouse) that Committees were chosen in a very unsatisfactory manner, and that nine out of ten were nothing but a sham. He was glad the question had been brought forward by the hon. Gentleman behind him; and he hoped that in future the Irish Members would take a greater part in Committee work, and that there would be no cause to complain that they did not attend as well as English Members. The noble Lord at the head of the Government having consented to add the names of three Irish Members, in common fairness he trusted the hon. Member (Mr. Keogh) would not mar the effect of that which had been done, by insisting that the Com-with some remarks upon them, notwithmittee should not be appointed to-night. MR. KEOGH could not defer to the advice of the hon. Member for Manchester; and he hoped the friendly sneer directed to Irishmen would be remembered not only by Irish Members in the House, but by Irishmen out of doors, and that might be important to the hon. Gentleman. It was very unpleasant to object to the name of any Gentleman, particularly the name of any Member from his part of the country; and, therefore, he must persevere, at the risk of incensing the hon. Member for Manchester, in objecting to the appointment of a portion of the Committee until it could be appointed as a whole. MR. BRIGHT said, it was entirely a mistake if it was thought he intended a sneer on Irish Members. No one had paid more attention or taken more interest than he had in Irish business; but this was a very dull place, and it was a common thing, if a double meaning could be at standing that a short debate on the same question had taken place upon it a few weeks ago, at which he was not present. But there was a special reason why those who concurred with him in that subject were induced at once to bring it under the notice of the House. The subject of transportation to our colonies was one on which public opinion in this country was weak, and did not press upon the Government; and it was no wonder that it should be so, the subject being a painful and a disagreeable, as well as a complex and difficult one. Of the Members of that House, for example, probably there were not many who knew or cared about the subject of transportation; but those who did know it, knew that it was a very serious matter. They would know, although to many of their Lordships it might be a disagreeable piece of news, that at this moment there was in the course of forma tion in all our Australian colonies, an anti convict league, to resist and oppose the system was only to be regarded in the transportation of convicts to any one of light of an experiment; and the question was, those colonies-not only to Van Diemen's how far had that experiment answered as Land, to which it was at present nominally a reformatory system? The main feature of confined, but to any one of the Australa- that system was that the whole of the strictsian colonies, including New Zealand. And ly penal part of the punishment for convicts as to what was the immediate origin of this sentenced to transportation should be inflictAustralasian combination, which would ed at home, and that, after the termination probably produce a petition to the Parlia- of that portion of their punishment, they ment of this country before the end of the should be deported to one of the colonies. present Session, signed by 40,000 or Now, as had before been pointed out, 50,000 persons out of a population of Bri- everything depended, as regarded the tish origin and of all ages, little exceeding operation of this system, on the effect 300,000. No doubt the immediate incen- which it would have on the criminally distive of this combination was the successful posed population at home; for, whatever example of the colony of the Cape, than differences there might be in detail, the which he had heard it stated that since system of removing convicts with tickets the transactions in Boston Harbour, New of leave was nothing in principle but the England, in the last century, no more assignment system revived. How far the alarming events of a similar character had system had been satisfactory at home, ever oscurred. Whether this Australa- there could not, at this period, be any sian Anti-Convict League would lead to doubt, for in this country crime had been results of equal gravity could not now be on the increase, while the convicts who predicted-he trusted that it would not had been sent to the colonies arrived there but, at all events, it was one of the first with extravagant expectations of high fruits of the successful resistance of the wages and certain prosperity. What had Cape to the reception of convicts. This their Governor in the colony of Van Diecircumstance showed the feeling of the men's Land said as to the circumstance of colonists on the subject, and he would having the restrictive and reformatory urge upon the attention of the House then, punishment inflicted at home, and not in as he had done before, to consider whether the colony? The Governor of that cothe necessity of getting rid of the incon-lony (Sir W. Denison), who had a great venience suffered at home from the diffi- desire that the experiment should succeed, culty of dealing with our criminal popula- saidlation, was sufficient to counterbalance the dissatisfaction and discontent engendered in these young and growing colonies, by their being compelled to receive the demoralised population we landed on their shores. No doubt the Government-and especially his noble Friend the Secretary for the Colonies (Earl Grey)-deserved the greatest credit for their attempts to reform the system of transportation; and doubtless if the system was to be carried on at all, it could not be carried into effect in a better manner than it was at present, or under a better agency. For the appointment of the present Governor of Van Diemen's Land, Sir William Denison, and Mr. Hampton, the Comptroller-General of convicts, under the existing system, he (Lord Lyttelton) was himself in some degree responsible; but he would call their Lordships' attention for a short time to the evidence of the Parliamentary Papers now on their Lordships' table, as to the manner in which the reformed system of transportation had worked. No one doubted that the present Government's reformed "Upon the supposition, therefore, that it is still the intention of Her Majesty's Government to carry out the principle of a gradual remission of punishment, allotting to the convict, first, a period of separate confinement; secondly, a term dulgences, closed at last by a conditional pardon, of compulsory labour; and, thirdly, a series of inI am prepared to submit and to recommend most earnestly that all the convicts whom it is intended to transmit to this colony should be sent here after having undergone the first portion of these punishments, and that they should pass their period of compulsory labour, and of the various modifications of indulgence, in accordance with the rules now in force here, and which have been found to work very well when properly administered." The Governor again repeated this opinion in still stronger terms: "I have submitted to your Lordship the propriety of sending the convicts out to this colony stage of their punishment, namely, the separate as soon as they have passed through the first confinement, and of allowing the colony to benefit by the labour of the men when undergoing the second stage of compulsory labour. The documents which I now forward are sufficient, I subtion of some rule of the kind, with regard to, at mit, to prove the absolute necessity of the adopall events, the Irish convicts." But this recommendation went to uproot the whole reforms in the system introduced by the Colonial Secretary, because it was the very keystone of his improvements that the convicts should pass the two first stages of their sentence in this country, and not in the colony. His noble Friend opposite could not be expected to accede to this; and in consequence he said in his reply, dated the 25th of July, 1850: "I do not consider that an experiment tried under such unfavourable circumstances ought to set aside the conclusion adopted upon general grounds, and from a much wider experience, as to the advantage of subjecting convicts to compulsory labour more immediately under the eyes of the Government, where any errors in the system of management may be more easily and promptly detected, and where the services of efficient officers can more easily be secured than in a distant colony. In Ireland, indeed, there have not yet been the requisite opportunities for introducing an efficient system of discipline for the whole of the greatly increased number of convicts in that island; and I think that it will probably be very desirable to take advantage of the means which you describe to exist of inflicting the second stage of punishment, or that of compulsory labour, in the colony for some of these Irish convicts." Now, observe, the noble Lord (Lord Grey) had made two important modifications in his expression of opinion. He stated that, in the first place, with regard to all Irish convicts--not the most welcome in the colony-as there was no efficient system of discipline in Ireland, it was probably desirable to take advantage of the means of inflicting the second stage of punishment-compulsory labour-in the colony in the case of some, and probably the whole of the Irish convicts. Well, as to the beneficial effect of the system, Sir William Denison wrote an honest statement declaring that he would be belieing his own convictions, and misleading the Colonial Office, if he said that he believed in the probability of any marked change in the moral principles of a convict through the operation of secondary punishments. The statistical tables showed that the number of male convicts at a given time under the operation of that system in Van Diemen's Land was 18,000 of all sorts, and out of these 1,700 were under magisterial sentence. Then, as to the condition of the female convicts in Van Diemen's Land, there was not much evidence on that point in the Parliamentary papers, and that little was not favourable; for he had heard, and he believed that many of their Lordships might also have heard, the most deplorable accounts regarding these female con Lord Lyttelton victs. Indeed, their condition was such, presented in favour of the system. With regard to the district of Western Australia, which was the strongest case of the Government last year, it was impossible to read the reports of the Governor of the colony without seeing that it was impossible to inflict the convict system much longer upon the colonists except by force. It was only an experiment which they were willing to endure from the dire necessity and need of labour for a certain time. They had repeated their request to have the convict system combined with an equal amount of free emigrantsa scheme which had failed in Van Diemen's Land; and the Governor even doubted how the system would work as regarded the boys sent out from Parkhurst Prison, for he declared that, in his judgment, many of the boys who had been deemed the best conducted while in the prison at Parkhurst, had turned out the worst conducted when they arrived in the Colony. With regard to the district upon which the noble Earl opposite relied the district of Moreton Bay-it could not be denied that from the great want of labour, there was some chance that the colonists would be willing to receive convicts. But that was a most precarious tenure upon which to place the system. At present the Moreton Bay district was a part of New South Wales, and being subject to its Legislature, would therefore be unable to have convicts against its consent. But even if it was made independent of New South Wales in future, the convict system could only last for a time; you would be only staving off the evil day; the colonists of Moreton Bay would not be able to resist the tide of feeling in all the neighbouring colonies; and doubtless when they had attained a sufficient supply of labour, and a state of prosperity, they would refuse to receive convicts any longer. The real question to be considered in a case like the present was this "What sort of a community do you wish your Colonies to become?" He took it for granted that we wished them to consist of good and useful and virtuous citizens. Now, in a moral point of view, the presence of these convicts must lead to the temporal and spiritual pollution of the Colonies, although it might forward their material interests; and yet we were bribing them, by a measure which seemed beneficial to their material interests, to consent to that which must tend to the degradation and ruin of their future social and spiritual interests. It could not be otherwise but that the presence of shoals of convicts would be detrimental to the morals of a Colony. The arguments advanced in favour of the present system was that the convicts at home, after passing through their punishment, could not find employment because they were shunned and dreaded by everybody. On what was that feeling founded? Was it not on something good? Was it not the dread of the contamination which they might spread among our children and families? And because the Colonies could not resist the pressure which we brought to bear against them, were we justified in forcing upon them a lower standard of morality than that by which we regulated our own society at home? His belief was that the present experiment in the convict system was not going on much better than the former experiments; and he believed that the Government would yet find themselves inevitably bound to reconsider the whole question, and abolish penal settlements altogether in the Australasian Colonies. This brought him to another important point-a point to which he had adverted last year, and to which he must advert again now. Last year, as now, every petition, every memorial, and every discussion that had taken place on this subject in Van Diemen's Land, had upbraided the Government in the strongest manner with the non-performance of the alleged promise which the colonists said they had received from the Secretary of State, in 1846, that transportation to Van Diemen's Land should cease. Probably a promise to that effect would not affect the convict system now pursued there; nevertheless, great aggravation of feeling had existed in consequence on the part of the colonists; and therefore it was that the subject had been so frequently before Parliament. But the Secretary of State had only given one answer to that alleged promise; he denied that he had ever made it. He said there might be a few expressions in an isolated despatch which might bear that construction; but no one could read the whole set of despatches without seeing that the intention of the Government was to maintain transportation in some form or other, and especially to Van Diemen's Land. But this was a fallacious mode of putting the case. There was no such set of despatches as the noble Lord referred to, and the question was as simple as possible. When the present Government came into office, they found the question of transportation |