PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
LICO.
885
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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s strict, and order and regularity maintained at a comparatively less amount of superintendence and expense; and the long-sentenced prisoners from England might have been advantageously located at Maria Island. They would have then been kept apart, and brought under the immediate surveillance of the authorities here, and the whole would have been managed at a considerable reduction of expense generally.
In September 1842, the estimate of timber growing on the island available for fuel ascertained by survey, was, I am informed, not calculated to last beyond six years; and should it hereafter become necessary to furnish supplies of fuel from hence, the expenditure would in consequence be considerably increased.
The Comptroller-General purposes shortly proceeding to inquire into the state of things, with the view to an improved system of management, but I confess I am not sanguine as to any diminution in the expenditure or other satisfactory results.
GEO. MACLEAN, D.C.G.
(Signed,)
Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land, April 10, 1846.
May 12, 1846.
Since writing the foregoing remarks, a Visiting Magistrate (a Mr. Stuart, from Port Arthur) has been deputed to inquire into matters at Norfolk Island, and sailed in the "Franklin" about a week ago, Mr. Champ, the Comptroller-General being unable to leave from the pressure of duty, and the probability of the Legislative Council assembling, of which he is a member.
1.-Extracts from Private Letters from Norfolk Island.
1st Letter, from a Clergyman (a Magistrate).
I fear Mr. James has got into unpleasant business. He has been incessantly in annoyances, and I imagine will be so as long as he remains at Norfolk Island. He wants judgment and experience, and he has in addition one of the most imbecile and wretched men to act under, in Major Child's, that the whole world can afford.
2nd Letter, from a Medical Officer (a Magistrate).
I am sorry to say we are far worse than ever. Major Childs, instead of improving by experience in convict discipline, appears daily to become more undecided and less stedfast, showing by many acts how unfit be is for his situation here. Unfortunately for himself he is on very indifferent terms with his officers, as regards the comforts of whom every restriction is attempted to be enforced with the utmost rigour, on the plea that such is laid down in the Island Regulations; while on the other hand, the moral improvement of the convict is grossly neglected, and the regulations respecting them but slightly, if at all, adhered to.
Most flagrant acts of insubordination are overlooked, and the prisoners generally seem to have much their own way. Those from Van Diemen's Land are exceedingly troublesome, and set a very bad example to the new hands recently arrived from England. Surely the Govern- ment cannot be aware of the state of discipline here, otherwise some change or at least inquiry would take place.
3rd Letter, from a Military Officer.
to
You can form no idea of the scene of anarchy and confusion. which the island is now reduced. Major Childs shows more and more every day, how utterly, how wretchedly unfit he is to manage such a
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From a communication addressed by the Superintendent of Agriculture to Deputy Adjutant-General Tomes, dated the 14th February, 1846, but which I consider as private.
:
I forward for the information of the Deputy Commissary-General a duplicate of my report to the Civil Commandant on the progress of this establishment, which will furnish all the other information which you desired.
I trust the Deputy Commissary-General will honour it with his attention; it wili furnish him with a representation of the state of things here, which must very soon arrest the attention of the Superior Autho- rities, not only in the colony, but in England.
I am quite satisfied that the individual opinions of the Civil Com- mandant are in perfect unison with my own, in every view that I enter- tain or have expressed relating to what is calculated to benefit the interests of the public service, or the branch entrusted to my charge.
But I regret to say that by an irresponsible influence he has, contrary to his own expressed opinion of what the interests of the public service demands, been chained down to an interpretation of the regula tions, and a course of proceeding founded on that interpretation, as incompatible with the attainment of the ends for which these regulations were framed, as it is inconsistent with the personal character of the Com- mandant, and the cordial co-operation of all under his command which the interests of the service demands, and which, if unimpaired by the counteracting influence to which I have referred, the personal estimation in which the Commandant is so generally held is so much calculated to
ensure.
Should I have committed an error in forwarding a duplicate of my report for the information of the Deputy Commissary-General, after Mr. Holman's attempt to interdict me from holding any direct official commu- nication with you, I trust that Mr. Maclean's kindness will prevent him making any use of my report officially, and that he will treat it as a private communication. conceive that, connected with and dependent on his department as this establishment is, the interests of the service demand that I should have the most perfect freedom of communication with the Commissariat.
Deputy Commissary-General Maclean to the Comptroller-General.
July 6, 1846.
In requesting that you will do me the favour to lay the accompany- correspondence before the Lieutenant-Governor, I have the honour to state that the several points raised therein have already been met by the printed instructions just issued from your office under his Excellency's authority.
I would nevertheless beg to suggest, with reference to this particular case, that a special order be given to Major Childs, to remove the restric- tion which he has imposed upon the official correspondence between the Commissariat office and the Superintendent of Agriculture, a restriction which I submit is not only unprecedented, but can operate in no other way than as a vexatious hinderance to public business, the interests of the two departments being identical, while they require that free and uninterrupted intercourse should be kept up constantly between the one
and the other.
place.
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