The Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. FRIDAY, MAY 30,1884. THE RECIDIVISTE QUESTION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 156, 30 May 1884, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. FRIDAY, MAY 30,1884. THE RECIDIVISTE QUESTION.

This question is ncov occupying considerable attention both at Home and m the Colonies. Some of our render.? may not have a full knowledge of the bearing of the question on the future of the colonies. The Recidiviste (habitual criminal) Bill is a measure for the wholesale transportation of the worst cla c scs of society. As originally introduced it proposed to deport all criminals who had been more than ouco convicted, and it proposed to convert the Pacific Islands into a moral cesspit for the receptacle of these people. The Napier Telegraph says that, as ib understands the matter the original measure proposed to traiihport all confirmed criminals, but subsequently it was amended for the purpose of limiting 1 the number to 40,000, who were to be transported at the rate, of 5000 a year. This is of itself sufficiently alarming, for we believe it is not yet absolutely decided whether the penal settlement is to be confined to New Caledonia or extended throughout the Pacific Islands The Australa ian, of a recent date when commenting upon the wh *!e .scheme, thought that it had much to recommend it, but it qualified its statement by saying 1 if it were earned out m some remote island lying out of 1 1n? track of ocean travel, and far distant from a British colony, it would be {find to witness the experiment m operation, and should rejoice m its success. Our contemporary wont on to say, but, if — as seems very probable — the islands of the Mew Hebrides should be taken po3-

session of by France, and should receive tens of thousands of moral outcasts year l>y year, many of these outcasts being the moat atrocious aud ferocious of criminals, we shall be confronted with a peril of more than ordinary magnitude. For these colonie--, with their wealthy and populous cities, would offer irresistible attractions to the skilful thieves, the accomplished swindleis, and experienced runi;tns who had acquired their pr >• ficiency m crime m the best school iv Europe. To men of this stamp a life of honest industry, a life of struggles and privations undergone m exile, would be lepugnant m the extreme ; aud the means of escape from it com paratively easy. For the surveillance over free men and women would be necessarily far less strict and vigilant than it is or has been over the deported m New Caledonia; and have contiived to find their way to our own shores. Communists aud petroleuses are bad enough, m all conscience, but what we are threatened with is an iuflux of fugitive erimiuaU m large numbers, and of the worst pn.ujjiblo typo. France, naturally enough, is anxious to be purged of their presence, and when she has once cast out this pernicious element of her population, she will not, it may lie safely assumed, spend much money or devote much effort m a distant settlement, to prevent her " relegates " from ebbing away to British colonies, and resuming- a career of crime among alien populations. No stone should be left nn turned to avert from this portion of the empire the very serious evils with which it is threatened ; and Lho annexation movement oughb to receive a new impulse from the knowledge we have now acquired of the scope and character of the French law of relegation.