First Reports From the Select Committee on Transportation PDF Download

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ISBN: 9781332189373
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Excerpt from First Reports From the Select Committee on Transportation: Together With the Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix 1. Chairman. I believe you fill the office of permanent Under Secretary of State for the Home Department? - I do. 2. How long have you occupied that office? - Since the year 1848. 3. Do you remember the passing of the Act 16 & 17 Vict., c. 99, in the year 1853? - I do, perfectly well. 4. I believe the preparation of that Act was a good deal under your own superintendence? - It was; in conjunction, of course, with the Lord Chancellor, and Lord Palmerston, who was then Principal Secretary of State. 5. I observe that in the Preamble of that Act, it is stated that "by reason of the difficulty of transporting offenders beyond the seas, it has become expedient to substitute, in certain cases, other punishment in lieu of transportation." Will you give the Committee some information as to the nature and extent of the difficulties of transporting offenders which had by that time come under your observation? - It is rather difficult to decide exactly at what point to begin upon such a question; but perhaps I may mention to the Committee that the first deadly blow which was struck at the system of transportation to the Australian colonies was given by a Committee of the House of Commons in 1838, generally known, I believe, as Sir William Molesworth's Committee. You are aware, I dare say, that the Report of that Committee of 1838 was extremely adverse to transportation, and recommended its discontinuance, both as a great injustice to, and a serious infliction upon the colonies, and also as a bad punishment in itself, failing to deter criminals at home, or reform them abroad; in fact, it is impossible to have a Report more decidedly adverse to it. There was at that time a very strong party in the colony opposed to transportation; not, however, at that time so strong I believe as those who were in favour of it. That Report of course gave great strength to the opponents of transportation; and though the system continued, yet the opposition increased in strength, I believe, every year. Unfortunately, in a few years preceding the year 1845, from 1840 to 1845 inclusive, the Government thought it right to send out an enormous quantity of convicts to the colony of Van Diemen's Land;there were no less than the enormous number of 17,000 convicts sent out in those six years. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.