6
results of a bad system of penal labour, that they take place quite out of our sight, in a colony at the farthest extremity of the world.
14. Lastly, it seems to me that if a change of policy of the sort I have recommended should be carried into effect, it would next have to be considered what relief ought to be afforded to the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, who are suffering so seriously from the effects of the scheme which during the last few years has been tried there with such fatal effects. This, however, would open a very large question, into which I will not enter at the present
moment.
Colonial Office,
August 19. 1846.
GREY.
>
The Transportation System.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TPLIC.O.
IN the year 1837 a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the system of transportation, its efficacy as a punishment, and its influence on the moral state of society in the colonies where it was in force. The same Committee was re-appointed the follow- ing session, and concluded by making a report embracing a history of transportation from its first establishment, with a description of its effects, both on the convicts themselves and on the free population of the penal colonies. The general results arrived at by the Committee were, that the transportation system, as then in practice, was,—
1st. Unequal as a punishment.
2nd. Without terrors for the criminal class.
3rd. Corrupting, both to the convicts and to the free population. 4th. Extravagantly expensive.
ง
The resolutions to which the Committee accordingly came, were,—
1st. That transportation to New South Wales and the settled parts of
Van Diemen's Land should cease.
2nd. That imprisonment with hard labour in penitentiaries at home
or abroad should be substituted.
3rd. That penitentiaries abroad should be established only where there was no free population, and that no such population should be allowed to grow up in their vicinity.
4th. That a stricter system should be established in regard to tickets
of leave, pardons, &c.
5th. That well-conducted convicts, punished in this country, should, on the expiration of their sentences, be encouraged to emigrate. And 6th. That convicts punished abroad, should, on the expiration of their sentences, be required to leave the colony in which their punish- ment had been undergone.
The appointment of the Committee, and the tendency of the evidence given before it, were soon known in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, where they created considerable alarm. Whatever might be the defects and evil consequences of transportation in other respects, to the inhabitants of those colonies, so long as the system of Assignment existed, it had, so far as regarded their pecuniary interests, been eminently advantageous. The rapid development of their resources had been mainly attributable to their almost unlimited command, under that system, of cheap and compulsory labour; and there could be no doubt that the sud- den stoppage of the supply would arrest their career of prosperity. Accordingly, no sooner was the evidence of 1837 known in New South Sir G. Gipps. Wales, than a memorial was addressed to the Governor by "67 magistrates July 18, 1838. **and above 500 individuals of great respectability" at Sydney, denying
its accuracy, deprecating the discontinuance of transportation, and calling on the Governor to collect and send home more accurate testimony on the subject; which the Legislative Council, actuated by the same feelings,
885.
2
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO