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to any part of the world he may choose, with the exception of the United Kingdom. A free pardon dispenses with even that condition.
In carrying these regulations into effect serious difficulties have arisen, partly from the inexperience, and partly, I fear, from the want of zeal of some of those to whoin the execution of them has been entrusted. Those difficulties must also, in part, be referred to local causes, which were not originally contemplated, and partly to an economy on the part of this country, which, however well intended, has been followed by unforeseen and injurious results.
The difficulties thus obstructing the execution of Lord Stanley's views have been chiefly the following:—
First. It has been found impossible to maintain a proper system of discipline in the different gangs by the agency of officers or overseers so numerically inadequate to the service to be performed.
Second. It has not been practicable to provide proper work for the convicts in the Probation Gangs and in the Hiring Dépôts, nor have the means existed of holding out sufficient inducements to them for the performance of that work.
Third. There has been no sufficient demand for the labour of the con- viets who, either as pass-holders or as holders of tickets of leave, have been candidates for hired service; and the result has been to subject to great distress the ticket-of-leave men, who are dependent for their subsist- ence on the wages they can earn.
Fourth. There has existed a fearful propensity among the convicts to the commission of unnatural crimes, which has been fostered by the congregation of so many persons of the same, sex in one spot, without providing the proper means of separation and superintendence.
Such having been practically found to be the difficulties of executing Lord Stanley's instructions, I am convinced that any attempt to find an effectual remedy for them all must be defeated, unless we commence by a great reduction in the average annual number of convicts transported to Van Diemen's Land. A partial remedy might indeed be found in engaging additional superintendents and overseers, and in providing proper build- ings for the convicts. A proper system of task-work might also render the labour of the convicts more remunerative. But even if this could be accomplished, to the extent of rendering the maintenance of the convicts no burthen on the finances either of the mother-country or of the colony, and if the effective demand for manual labour could be extended sufficiently to provide for the employment of upwards of 4000 convicts who would be thrown annually into the colony, the worst of the evils which have resulted from the existing system would not be got rid of. The great dispropor- tion between the sexes would still exist, and, the effects of that dispropor- tion, as exhibited in the reports which have kitherto been received, horrible and disgusting as they are, must be expected to appear on a yet wider scale, and in forms (if that be possible) of still deeper malignity.
The numerical state of the convict population of Van Diemen's Land appears, by the most recent accounts, to be as follows:-
On the 1st January, 1846, the total number of
the convicts in the colony were
29,949
Of these there were, holding tickets of leave Pass-holders
7,236 12,240
Leaving in the Probation Gangs
10,473
29,949
Of these 12,240 pass-holders 3,509 were unable to find work, and were still at the hiring depôts; of the 10,173 probationers 3,852 would receive passes in the course of the present year.
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The number of convicts actually under sentence at any one time may be taken to be 30,000, the number annually transported being about 4000. The average number of years passed under sentence, previous to the receipt of conditional pardons, is therefore about seven and a-half,
It is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to stop altogether the transportation to Van Diemen's Land, of male convicts at all events, for the space of two years. At the end of that period the probation gangs will be empty. All those who now hold tickets of leave may by that time have received conditional pardons; and of the present pass-holders, about 7 or 8000 ought to have received tickets of leave. Nevertheless, unless those who will then have received conditional pardons shall for the most part have quitted the colony, thus leaving their places to be filled up by other ticket-of-leave men or pass-holders, or unless the ordinary demand for labour shall have been very greatly extended, the number of unem- ployed men in the hiring depôts will have been increased very materially, probably to 8 or 10,000 at least.
It is therefore of most pressing necessity to consider whether work could be found for such a mass of men in any of the methods contemplated in Lord Stanley's despatches, and if not, what other mode of providing employment for them could with advantage be adopted. The methods of making use of their labour which were proposed by Lord Stanley were as follows:-
Ist. The raising their own provisions, making their own clothes, and erecting their own dwellings or places of confinement.
2nd. The execution of various public works, for which the British Treasury is responsible.
3rd. The preparation of Waste Lands for future settlement and sale, ` for the benefit of the Treasury.
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On these plans of employment I have to make the following remarks. The labour of a very small proportion of these men will, if properly employed, provide food and clothing for the whole number. When once the dwellings and places of confinement have been erected, but little labour will be required in maintaining them. There will be a large body of men available for executing Public Works, or preparing Waste Lands. Of such works there cannot be many; and I very much doubt whether the addi- tional value bestowed upon the land, by clearing and fencing it, will be such as to remunerate the Government for the cost of the labour. I do not mean to say that under certain circumstances it may not prove a very valuable mode of employing labour; but under the supposed condition of the colony, with a large convict population, the probability would be that more land would be cleared' than would be purchased, in which case the money expended in clearing and fencing would be actually thrown away, as the ground would soon resume its original condition of forest.
It appears to me, therefore, that the plans of employment indicated in Lord Stanley's despatches, are not sufficient to occupy the time and labour of the people for whose subsistence the Government will be responsible, so long as the existing disproportion between the number of convicts in the island, and the natural demand for labour there shall continue to exist. It becomes, therefore, necessary to consider whether, until that dispro- portion has ceased, (which would not take place very soon, even if the whole transportation system were at once and for ever abandoned,) some other method of disposing usefully of this great amount of unrequired labour cannot be devised.
The method which has occurred to myself is that of building villages for the occupation of labourers with their families. In eligible situations these convicts might be employed in building villages of from one to two hundred cottages. To every such cottage should be attached a well-fenced garden of aquarter of an acre; and there should be erected a church, a school, and houses for a clergyman and schoolmaster. These buildings might be
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