Page:The Statistics of Crime in Australia (IA jstor-2338612).pdf/2

 unfortunate native war is limited,the natives are still in numbers about equal to the colonists,and they have been very impressively teaching the latter for several years past to respect some at least of the qualities of savage life.

.—Local circumstances affecting Ratio of Crime.

In a view of the state of crime in Australia, the most important circumstance is the system of the transportation of criminals from this country—a system familiar to us by seventy-five years of uninterrupted duration, and that still survives, although in a diminished degree, in the colony of West Australia

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. 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. New Zealand is being further affected prejudicially, in a social sense, by the extensive gold mining in the southern districts during the last three years.

.—Crime in Australia as compared with England.

We are curious to inquire, with regard to these colonies, what is the ratio of crime as compared with this country. We see that they are peopled mainly by the same race, but under happier circumstances as to the means of subsistence and general well being. Remembering how intimately crime is proportioned to destitution in this country, we naturally anticipate that in the colonies, with diminished destitution, there will be diminished crime. 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. The inquiry can be fairly conducted only at some future day, when these effects have passed away. Meanwhile, however, we may reason-