CO885(1-2) — Page 631

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference —

LLC.O.

885

2

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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15. I should wish you, as far as it may be prac- ticable to do so, to carry on these works by contract: the contractors for their execution would naturally employ the convicts ordered to reside in the dis- trict, and as they would for their own interest take care to require a full amount of labour in return for the wages they agreed to pay, they would exercise probably a closer and at the same time a more eco- nomical superintendence over the men they em- ployed than it would be practicable to maintain by means of officers in the service of the Government. At the same time it is very probable that for some of the works it would be most expedient to under- take, it may be impossible to enter into contracts on reasonable terms; and if so, they would pro- perly be carried on under the immediate direction of the Colonial Government.

16. Next has to be considered the question of the sufficiency of the funds at your command

for providing employment in this manner for the convicts who may be thrown upon your hands. The source from which this expense must mainly be provided for, is the territorial revenue of the colony, a fund which, for reasons which I have fully explained in another despatch of this date, I conceive to be specially and peculiarly applicable to the execution of precisely that class of works on which it is most desirable that convicts should be employed. This mode of employing them has also this to recommend it, that money which is thus expended is certain, if laid out judiciously, to be returned to the Government by increased receipts from the sale and leasing of land, so that the means at your command would probably increase in the same proportion with the demands which would be made upon them. An additional source from which funds are to be looked for towards meeting this expense, will be the payments to be required from convicts. You have already been informed that these payments are to be consi- dered applicable to the encouragement of emigra- tion, or to other objects calculated to counteract any injurious tendency which the sending of con- victs to the colony might be supposed to exercise upon its moral condition. In Van Diemen's Land, 1r reasons which have often been adverted to in

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former despatches, the funds in question ought to be so applied as to encourage the settlement

in it of a class of emigrants who will increase the demand for labour, and also to promote more directly the moral improvement of the convicts.

17. With the latter object I would particularly direct your attention to the importance of erecting in the districts in which convicts will be placed, churches and schools, with houses for ministers of religion, to which should be attached glebes, cleared and fenced so as to be ready for occupation. These structures should, of course, be of the plainest and simplest kind, and should be erected with the most studious regard to economy: but a comparatively small sum of money laid out in this manner would do much towards increasing the amount of advan tage which would be derived from the funds which may be available from other sources for the moral and religious instruction of the population. It is obvious that when the use of a house and land ready for immediate occupation can be given to a clergyman or schoolmaster, a smaller stipend will suffice than would be necessary for one to whom these advantages could not be extended, while, by means of convict labour and with materials on the spot, this accommodation might frequently be pro- vided at a very inconsiderable cost. I need hardly observe that this advantage ought to be extended with impartiality to the different denominations of Christians in proportion to the number of their respective followers.

18. The statements contained in your recent de- spatches of the progressive improvement of the considerable territorial revenue (from which a balance was already available), and of the large extent of land of a very eligible description for settlers (more particularly for those following pas- toral pursuits), which has been discovered, and which you were already taking measures to render more easily accessible, together with your report of the rise of new branches of industry, and of the improvement of the demand for labour which had taken place, lead me to entertain a confident expectation that you will have no difficulty in providing for the employment of convicts upon