William Westgarth

“ In a society so constituted, there is of course an incessant recommitting of offences. If unlocked doors will argue for a limitation of crime in some particular direction, there must yet, by the results before us, be a full compensation in many other ways. ”

“ New South Wales and Victoria, on the other hand, have been checked in their ameliorative progress by the gold discoveries, and the rude experiences of gold mining life for the last thirteen years.—In Victoria about 90,000, or one-sixth of the whole population, are "actual miners."—Queensland and New Zealand are still in a socially unsettled state from an almost daily immigration of large numbers of new colonists, and the disproportion of females usual in the first peopling of remote colonies. ”

“ It is only fair towards West Australia to recall that similar views pervaded New South Wales and Tasmania in their earlier years, at a time when colonial interests were represented mainly by a handful of employers, who regarded the colonies as a field for gain rather than a home. West Australia has not yet emerged from a parallel condition. ”

“ But the future will also have its improvement, as Victoria herself exemplifies, whose chief goldfields are even now the seats of considerable municipal towns, communicating with each other by roads or railways and telegraphs, and drawing with facility from their seaports, in exchange for the all-negotiable gold, the choice of the world's market for their social amenity and progress. ”

“ But after making due allowance on this behalf, and on the other hand deducting the young of those ages during which offence is rare, and the females, with all of whom we may hope, from the circumstance of their non-convict character, that it is equally rare, we are shut up to a most extraordinary conclusion—no other, in fact, than this, that well nigh every second man of the community is a yearly offender against society. ”

“ They mark with satisfaction the gradual wane of the old state of things, with the dangers and disgrace that have so long beset them; and we may readily suppose that when the dawn of a better order is fairly brightening upon them, the effect of any interruption, such as this persistent continuance of transportation to West Australia, must be intolerably vexatious.
There is indeed an argument against the colonists, as well as for them, in this question. England planted her convict colonies upon the desolate shores of Australia ”

“ These colonies pervade a wide diversity of climate, from the winter snows of southern New Zealand, and from the genial Tasmania onwards continuously to tropical Queensland. Does the difference of climate seem to make any difference in the ratio of crime amongst the same people? "We know that our physical system is affected, and mostly for the worse, as we go towards the equator. ”

“ Many doors are kept unlocked, but it is the security of a poor colony that presents little to tempt the thief, and no opportunity to dispose of any plunder. The official regulations are favourably alluded to. There is a strict surveillance and firm grasp of the convicts while undergoing sentence; but all this is at an end after they are freed by conditional pardon or servitude. They then instinctively turn their eyes to more prosperous and attractive spheres, and shoal off by hundreds annually to the eastern settlements. ”

“ A variety of other circumstances, although in their effects of minor consequence to that just alluded to, tend to produce diversities in the ratio of crime in these different colonies. In South Australia, for instance, there is, comparatively with the other- colonies, a settled population, extensively grouped into the family relationship, with the sexes nearly equalised—census 8th April, 1861, 126,830, viz., males, 65,048, females, 61,782—and where agricultural operations on a large scale have reproduced much of our English country life. ”

“ If these colonies cannot yet take a high rank in the social scale in respect to their crime ratio, let us console ourselves in regarding the much lower position from which they have risen, and thus take reasonable assurance that the future will exceed the present, somewhat as the present has exceeded the past. ”

“ The hand of fellowship is not extended to the latter by the former, and we cannot wonder at such reticence; for although, as my authority remarks, "many of the ex-convicts have acquired homes and property, the condition of the mass is most unsatisfactory. They remain wanderers on the face of the land; religion unknown to them, drunkenness an universal vice." ”

“ The colonies that indicate at present the highest crime ratio are, besides "West Australia, which is still a convict colony, Tasmania and New South Wales, originally penal settlements, although now no longer such, and Victoria which is situated between them. ”

“ But in 1863 the population had increased to 18,700, while the revenue was between four and five times larger, the imports nearly doubled, and the exports quintupled. Many colonists, especially traders in the towns, had realized small fortunes, such as they could not have even dreamed of amid the virtuous poverty of the earlier times. ”

“ If we do not find this to be the case—for on the contrary the average of crime is much greater—we must bear in mind that the effects of the transportation system have confused all the proper elements of our case. ”

“ Either of these parties—the offender and the offended—we may be sure, is an offence to the other; but which is society? Rarely indeed have the opposing kingdoms of the good Ormuzd and the evil Abriman been so nicely balanced. ”