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Page 13
Before bringing forward any additional material on one side or the
other, let us pause for a moment to consider the results which have
just been obtained as to the effect of race as compared with climate
upon crime. In India we have found an Aryan and a non-Aryan population
living together under the same climatic influences, and very much the
same social conditions, and we have seen that the Aborigines are more
criminally disposed than the Aryan invaders. Again we have a Mongolian
race living in the far North of Europe, and we find that they show a
larger percentage of homicidal crime than the Teutonic inhabitants
who live in the same latitudes. In Hungary, where the Mongoloid type
is once more met with, the same facts are substantially reproduced;
this type is more homicidal than the Austrian Teutons living under a
similar climate. While these facts point to the conclusion that race
has apparently some influence on the amount of crime, they fail to
show that race characteristics alone are sufficient to explain the
differences in criminality between the same peoples when settled in
different quarters of the globe. The Mongoloid type in Finland is
less criminal than the same type in Hungary, and the Teutonic type
in Scandinavia is less murderously disposed than the same type in
the empire of Austria. It has also been pointed out that the
Anglo-American of the Northern States is more law abiding than his
brother by race in the South, while both are more murderous than the
inhabitants of the United Kingdom; where extremes of climate are not
so great.
With these facts before us we shall now institute another comparison
between two widely separated branches of the Anglo-Saxon race, namely,
the colonists of Australia and the people of the motherland. Of the
Australian colonists it is not incorrect to say that they are, on the
whole, the pick of the home population. It is perfectly true that a
certain proportion of the ne'er-do-wells have emigrated to Australia,
and some of them, no doubt, help to swell the normal criminal
population of the colonies. But, on the other hand, Australia has this
advantage, that the average colonist who seeks a home beyond our
shores is generally a superior man to the average citizen who remains
at home; he is more steady, more enterprising, more industrious. In
this way the balance is adjusted in favour of the colonies. It is a
great deal more than redressed if the superior, social, and economic
conditions, under which the colonists live, are also placed in the
scale. In his "Problems of Greater Britain," Sir Charles Dilke has
shown, with admirable clearness, what immense advantages are enjoyed
by the working population of Australia as compared with the same class
at home; so much is this the case that the Australian colonies have
been not inaptly called the paradise of the working man. Here then is
an excellent opportunity for comparing the effects of climate upon
crime. In Australia we have a people of the same race as ourselves,
better off economically, living under essentially the same laws and
governed in practically the same spirit. Almost the only difference
between the inhabitants of the United Kingdom and the communities of
Australia is a difference of climate. Does this difference manifest
itself in the statistics of crime? In order to test the matter we
shall exclude the colony of New South Wales from our calculations. For
its size New South Wales is the richest community in the world, and
its riches are well distributed among all classes of the population.
But it was at one time a penal settlement, and it is possible that the
criminal statistics of the colony are still inflated by that remote
cause. The sister colony of Victoria stands upon a different footing
and is free from that disturbing factor; we shall therefore select
that colony as a normal type of the Australian group. In Part V.I.I.
of the Statistical Register of the colony of Victoria for 1887, there
is an excellent summary of the position of the colony with respect to
crime. The admirable manner in which these judicial statistics are
arranged, reflects the highest credit on the colonial authorities; for
fulness of information and clearness of arrangement they are not
surpassed by any similar statistics in the world. As homicide is the
crime on which we have hitherto based our international comparisons,
we shall, for the present, confine our attention to the Victorian
statistics of this offence.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Countries|Population|Years.| Tried | Convicted
| over Ten.| | Annual Per | Annual Per
| | |Average 100,000 |Average 100,000
| | | Inhabitants.| Inhabitants.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Victoria | 581,838|1882-6| 22 3.2 | 14 2.5
United
Kingdom |26,594,582|1882-6| 505 2.35 | 226 .96
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