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CONFIDENTIAL
Memorandum upon the Changes necessary in the system of Trans- portation.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference:
TILLE C.O.885
2
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
OUR present system of transportation of convicts is a subject to which, from the increasing difficulties which surround it, the serious attention of Her Majesty's Government must soon be directed,
The avowed disinclination of Van Diemen's Land to receive our convicts, and the course which the Legislature of that colony and the self-styled Australian League have taken upon this question, will doubtless be strongly pressed ere long upon both Parliament and the Government.
It is true that public opinion in the Australian colonies upon this subject is by no means unanimous.
In the Moreton Bay district of New South Wales the necessity for a better supply of labour is so strongly felt, that I found when I came into office, an application to my predecessor, which was after- wards repeated to myself, that the northern part of New South Wales might be constituted a separate colony in order to set them free to receive trans- ported convicts from this country.
Again, it is certain that the attraction of the gold fields upon the neighbouring continent has rendered convict labour of great value in Van Diemen's Lund.
The presence of convicts in that colony has alone saved the employers of labour from serious embar- rassment for the last twelve months; and we have before us the fact that on the arrival at Hobart
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