Page:The Statistics of Crime in Australia (IA jstor-2338612).pdf/3

 infer, from the fayourable condition presented to na even now by some of the colonies that hare happened to be the least exposed to the convict stream—South Australia, New Zealand, and particularly Queensland—that the entire group would, but for this cause, have compared to decided advantage with the mother country.

.—Crime and Climate.

Another point challenges our curiosity. 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. Is it so with the moral system? and do our tropical colonies of the British people indicate more crime than those of temperate climes? This question cannot be answered any more than the previous one, and for the same reason. The data are all at cross purposes on the subject, for the chief determining cause as yet has been the incidence of the convict system. 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. Tasmania enjoys a mean yearly temperature of 53° or about 4° more than London; Victoria of 58°; and New South "Wales of 66°. South Australia, on the other hand, under a mean of 64°, is considerably better than any of the preceding. But the smallest ratio of crime is due to Queensland, whose ample area lies upon either side of the tropical line.

.—Crime in Australia Greater than in England.

Australia, then, does not present us with the pleasant spectacle of an unusually small ratio of crime. On the contrary, in the chief colonies it is much, nay even enormously, greater than in this country. In the case of Victoria, as stated in a protest addressed last year to the home public by the Anti-transportation League of the colony, the cost of police and prisons for the year 1860 amounted to no less than 15s. per head of the whole population. We shall better apprehend the meaning of this statement when I add that the cost of police and prisons in England and "Wales for the year 1863, according to the parliamentary papers on the subject lately published, is only 2s. 1½d. per head,—police 1,658,265l. prisons 547,415l.; population about 20,440,000. No doubt these costs must be greater, in similar circumstances, to the thin population of a colony, than to the dense masses of a longer-settled country, and the coat of police service is greater in the colonies; but the difference in question far