PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
26
Sir William Denison, September
28, 1848. Parliamentary Paper
of July 1849, page 65.
herewith in a note*. And wages are mentioned by Sir W. Denison as being at from 91. to 121. per whilst they are more than double that rate annum, in the adjacent settlements. This no doubt will stimulate the desire of men who obtain conditional pardons to remove from the island, and to that extent will tend to afford it relief; on the other hand, however, it betokens a very large supply of labour already in proportion to the demand. As it is so important to form a correct opinion on the future capabilities of Van Diemen's Land to main- tain the convicts until, by acquiring conditional pardons, they can remove to other places, extracts are placed in the Appendix of some of the principal Appendix No. 6. remarks which have been met with on this point
in Sir W. Denison's despatches. On the whole, whilst it is very probable that Van Diemen's Land may be able for a certain time to absorb a conside- rable number of convicts after the relief it has lately enjoyed, it appears a very serious question whether it can be expected for a course of years to receive annually 4000 convicts meant to earn their own subsistence at wages, without any dependence on the Government.
60. Nevertheless, one thing appears certain, either they must be disposed of in Van Diemen's Land, with the aid of the small settlement of Wes- tern Australia; or it must be supposed that other colonies can be induced to take them (which seems very improbable at the present moment); or they must be set free at the end of their time in this kingdom. They cannot be sent off to foreign coun- tries. The question therefore lies between the British colonies or the British counties. The gene- ral arguments for and against each are familiar, and they will only be briefly alluded to in this paper.
* Emigrants from Van Diemen's Land.
Persona
Fre
Persons
who have been Convicts.
Total.
1 Year from April 1, 1846, to March
31, 1847
2,651
2,452 5,103
1 Quarter deficient.
1 Year from June 30, 1847, to De-
cember 31, 1848
*3,682
2,424 6,106
6,333
4,876 11,209
R
མ
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61. By removal from their old haunts and asso- ciates, and also from a country where the supply of labour is in excess of the demand, and every candidate for employment is almost fastidiously scrutinised, the criminal himself has a far better chance of reform in the colonies; for the very same reasons the mother-country profits by his transportation; and the colonies, it is maintained, gain the benefit of his services in a state of society where manual labour is greatly wanted, whilst, if he undergo a proper course of preliminary disci- pline, and if the whole number sent be in only moderate proportion to the free population, the moral tone of the convict is far more likely to be raised, than that of the community to be lowered. The two first parties to the transaction, viz., the State and the Criminal, make a large and an undeniable gain; the Colony, if it suffers some moral evil, suffers infinitely less than any old and over- crowded society, in which the convict should be turned loose with almost a paramount necessity of committing fresh crime.
62. Such are some of the prominent arguments on one side of the question. On the other side it has been boldly stated in Parliament, that although the offender may be deprived of his best and almost only chance of amendment, that although
Vide Sir W. Molesworth's Speech this country may be put to the expense and "the on Colonial Affairs, June 25. trouble" of punishing over and over again the
1849 near the end.
same criminal, and to the inconvenience of retain- ing a very dangerous class within its own limits, still the injustice of sending the convicts to the colonies is so great, and the odium which it must excite so strong, that before long Great Britain must be content to bear the burthen of her own criminals. Although only a few have expressed this opinion in such forcible language, it must be supposed that all who have manifested such strong objections to sending convicts to this or that par- ticular colony, are prepared to come to the sanie conclusion. For the general grounds of a moral nature alleged on behalf of one colony are equally applicable to another. Indeed, they must become stronger as each colony in turn is excluded from the list of those which may receive convicts, since it is plain that if transportation is to be kept up, it is much more fair, and less injurious to the