EARL GREY'S NEW DESPATCH TO NEW SOUTH WALES, ON THE CONVICT QUESTION. Downing-street, 10th November, 1849.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 426, 15 May 1850, Page 2

EARL GREY'S NEW DESPATCH TO NEW SOUTH WALES, ON THE CONVICT QUESTION. Downing-street, 10th November, 1849.

Sir,— -I have received your despatch, No. 42, of the 2 1 it March last, enclosing various addressei and communications, which have been addressed to you at Melbourne, against the introduction of convicts with | tickets of leave, into that portion of New South Walos, together with the published report of a public meeting' at Sydney, at which strong objections were expressed to the introduction of such convicts into the Middle q District. " 2. I regret to learn that the measure of lending convicts, with tickets of leave, to New South Walei, has been so strongly objected to by many persons in the colony ; and it becomes neceisary, in consequence of the manner in which these objections have been urged, that I should briefly review the proceedings which have taken place on the subject, and that I should explain both the grounds upon which her Majesty's GoVernment hare acted in what has already been done with reference to it, and the course which it is intended now to pursue. > 3. On the 30th of April, 1846, my predecessor instructed you as (he Governor of the colony, to ascertain whether to send convicts to New South Wales, after a previous period of probation, would be acceptable to the inhabitants. On the 6th November, 1846, in answering this inquiry, you transmitted some petitions which had been addreised to the Legislative Council against the renewal of transportton, and at the same time a report from a Committee of Council-* expressing an opinion in its favour, provided that it should be accompanied by certain measures which 4g|j committee recommended. These measures I will nn v > enumerate here ; they arc set forth perspicuously in the report itself j but I may state that two. leading

features of the committe's recommendations wi-rejlirst, that free emigrants (including the wives and families of the piiioners) Bhould be sent out in a number equal to that of the convicts; and secondly, that instead of being placed in a state of almost entire freedom, the convicts should be subject to a strict power of control, bo that if intro'ilured, for example, from Van Diemcn's Land, they should rather be so with t'ukets of leave than as the holders of conditional pardons, t- 4. When this report leached England, the duty devolved upon me of acquainting you, in my deipatch of the 3rd of September, 1847, that her Majesty's Government could not concur in all the proposals of thB committee, especially at these proposals contemplated a recurrence to the assignment of convicts— a practice which had been for some time discontinued, in accordance with the opinion of a Committee of the House of Commons, which had advised its abandonment on such strong grounds as roust preclude its renewal. But though the views of the Committee of the Legislative Council could not he entirely adopted, to a coniiderable extent they met with our concurrence, and they formed the main foundation of an arrange* ment which I proposed for the consideration of the Legislative Council, in my dispatch of 3rd September, 1847) and which included both of the important suggestions of the committee to which I have above more particularly adverted.

5. Hei Mujesty's Government were the more induced to expect that the proposal thus made might be regaidcd as satisfactory by the Committee of the Legislative Council, because it was considered that by *cmling out couvicti with tickets of leave after a due period of probation in tins country, the advantages which really Lad belonged to the system of assignment might be secured without the evils by which, when it was formerly in force, this system hud been attended. The leading advantages of assignment was, that it supplied the demand of private employers for labour, and that it placed the convicts, when they were fortunate in their matters, in circumstances favorable to their leformation, by dispersing them in the more thinly inhabited districts of the colony, instead of congregating them in large masses, or allowing them to remain exposed to the temptations of the large towns. This advantage would seem equally to belong to permiui-ig convicts, by means of tickets of leave, to work for their own livelihood, and at tho same time distributing them into different dutricts, within which they are required to reiide. The great objection of assignment was the inequality of the condition in which it placed different convictsi so that some might; be unduly favoured by the partiality, and others be unduly oppressed by the harshness of the employers to whom they might happen to be assigned. This objectiou it obviated by tickets of leave, which allow the men the liberty of chosing their own matters.

P> 6. Before the proposal of her Majesty's Gorernraent could reach the colony, the Legulative Council, which had not had time, in the p evious session, to deliberate on the report of its commute 1 , hud on its reassennblage come to a vote disapproving of the conclusion contained in that repoit, and declining to adopt its recora. mendations. This 1 leurnt from your despatch of the 25th of September, 1847. But when the proposal of her Majesty's Government arrived, the Legislative Council re-considered the subject, and passed an address to yourself expressive of its willingness to cooperate in the measuiei suggested in my despa'ch, which you laid before if.

7. This intelligence, contained in your despatch of the 10th of April, 1848, reached me at a pecu iar moment. I had jmt adcli eased a circular despatch to the Governors of those colonies which were considered to afford the beat opening for Euiopem labourers, in which, after explaining the good effects of the mensu ci which had, within a few years, been adopted f >r subjecting convicts to an improved system of reform! t>ry discipline, I made, on the part of her Majesty's Government, an offer to send out to these colonies, if the measure should be acceptable to their inhabitants, such of the convicts who had undergone this discipline as were judged deserving of tickets ot leave.— From the address of the Legislative Council, which, not many months before, I h.'d received from you on the subject of emigration, I had every reason to believe that so urgent a demand for labour then prevailed in New South Wales, as to render an immediate and large supply of labourers an object of vital inteiest to the colony. These circumstances rendered me very unwilling to disappoint the inhabitants of the supply of labour, which they might justly expect from the communications which had passed between the Legislative Council and her Majesty's Government. On the other hand, the close of the lession rendered it impossible, at that time, to apply to Parliament for a grant to meet the expense of lending out free emigrants in equal numbers with the convicts who might he sent to New South Wales ; and the financial condition of this country had also become sucli, that I could not feel any confidencs that, in the eniuing session, it would be found that Parliament could not with propriety be called upon to grant the money which would be required for this purpose,

8. The question, therefore, to be determined by her Majesty's Government, was whether, because it was out of their power to send out, in equal numbers, both convicts and free labourers, as had been orit}inully proposed, they should abstain from sending either the one or the other ; or whether, on the other hand, they should) until a further communication could be received from you, send out the convicts who were expected, and whose services (were ?) believed to be so urgently required— at the same time explaining to you why the plan could not be carried into execution exactly as it had been agreed to ; and also informing you that if you should find the colonists unwilling to leceive convicts unaccompanied by the promised number of free emigrants, the transmission of convicts to the colony in ibis manner should be discontinued as Boon as you gfoouli] so report to me, the Parliament being, at the same time, applied to for tile means of icdeeming the promise which had been made by sending out as many free emigrants as there might have been convicts already sent. Upon full consideration, it appeared to me that the latter wai the course which it would be moit for the advantage of the colony to adopt) since it would thus at once obtain a portion of that supply of labour which wag represented to be indispensable in order to avert the roost serious inconvenience ; and because, without interposing the long delay of a previom correspondence with the colony, the adoption of this course wou'd place it absolutely at the option of the Legislative Council, either to close the transaction as one to be completed on the terms which it had already approved, or to ctrry it on permanently on a diffeicnt footing, if this were judged by the Council to be for the public advantage. 0. Her Majesty's Government having, for these reasons, determined for the present at least, to continue to »end convicts to New South Wales, did not lose light of their original intention of applying to Parliament for the means of carrying on (ree emigration at the same time ; and they were glad to be enabled 10 recommend that a grant should be in <de for this purpose in the last Session. Parliament, as you are aware, assented to this proposal, and has made liberal provision for sending out free emigrants to those colonies Vfhich »eceive convicts. Large numbers of the wives

and families of convicts, as was recommended by the Council, have already been despatched to New South Wales; other free emigrants, selected for their useful* ness and good character, are also about to be immediately sent, at the expense of this country ; and in fa^.t, all is proceeding exactly ns was contemplated by the Legislative Council when it gave its assent to the proposed measures in April, 1848.

10. Such are the circumstances under which I have received your present dispatch, accompinied by the reports of public meetings — at which the most unmca•ured imputations of bad faith are thrown out against Her Majesty's Government, and the boldeit assertions made that the free emigrants who had been promised, in the event of their being called for by the Council, would never be sent. The answer is, that, without waiting for any demand for the Council, the free emigrants ure already gone, or going, by means of a grant, recommended to Parliament muny months before the receipt of the present adviceß fram the colony.

11. Ai I observe thnt in Poit Phillip much stress is laid on the fact that the new convicts were holtlcis of tickets of leave, and not "exiles"— which is only another expression for men with conditional pardon*, I must point out that the objection urged on (his ground seems to reit on misconception. When the plan of sending out exiles was first adopted, convicts who had already undergone a certain amount of puniihment, were sent out under this name, with conditional pardons ; but it was represented by some of Ihe most experienced officers in whose charge they were placed, that by this plan men who had been accustomed to the most scYcre discipline, were relieved too suddenly and too absolutely from all control. The Committee of the Legislative Council of New Smith Wales, adopting 1 a similar view, had most judiciously suggested that convicts sent to the colony should hold tickets of leave instead of conditional pardons ; the measure which has been obje-cted to is, therefore, merely the adoption of the course recommended by these autlioiities, and the whole amount of the change is, that instsad of sending out convicts as was nt first the practice, in s>uch a mauner as to h»" iclcaaed from all fupciintendeuce, and from all check upon their conduct, they have lately been sent wi(h tickets of leave, by which they are left as free as before to earn their own subsistence, but are subjected to the necessity of removing from the towns and the temptations to which they would there be exposed, in order to distribute themselves, under the orders of the Government, in the various districts where they are most wanted, while they are also rendered liable to be remanded to a penal condition in case of misconduct.

12. It is difficult to conceive how the security of the colony can be impaired by a change in the constitution under which convicts arc sent out, ol which the only effect is to place them under these additional restraints from evil and these additional incentives to good conduct. As to the vrant of any penal establishment to which to remand ill-conducted holders of tickets of leave, to which Mr. La Trofoc advertß, I have to obsei ye that the i nstructions sent to you provided that such men should be sent to iLcsame places of punishment with persons cotivictcd of ciinoes committed in the colony, the cost which they might there occasion being charged to this country. If 1 atn not rnisinken, those who are convicted of serious crimes in the Port Phillip District are at present seat for punishment (o Cockatoo Inland, or some other place of detention in the Middle District ; and convicts from this country holding tickets of leave in the Poit Phillip Distiiot, would, in case of misconduct, have been dealt with in the same manner.

13. Returning, however, from the digiession I have made in order to correct the misapprehension which appears to exist on the nature and effect of tickets of leave, I may repeat that the plan according to which convicts have recently heen sent to New Somh Wales. is now being carried into effect in strict conformity with that which was sanctioned by the Legislative Council in the month of April, 1848. It is possible that a change of opinion may since have taken place in that body and in the colony ; and it may be gathered from some of the reports you have enclosed fiom the Superintendent of Port Phillip that, to some extent at least, such is the case ; and that since Her Majesty's Government have poured in such laige supplies of free labour, the very sume persons who once hnd been advocates for the measure of introducing convicts aie now among its opponents. But it is obvious that even were it ci'rtain* that this change of opinion were general, it could not reasonably be made mailer of complaint against Her Majesty's Government that that they had acted in ronforaiity with wishes previously expressed by the Legislature, nor should I he justified in assuming, in opposition to the recorded vote of that body (the only one which, upon such contested questions, I can regard as sneaking the sentiments of the whole community), that the colonists are no lunger desirous of receiving convicts upon the conditions on the Address of the 7th April 1818, declines that they will be acceptable. It would be the Icbs proper to do so because it is obvious that this is a question upon which very opposite views are enterfc.iint,d in different parts of the colony, and by different classes of its inhabitants. Nearly at the same time with your report of the public proceedings in that pat t of the colony, I received from several propiietors ot flocks at Moreton Bay, an earneit request, embodied in a peti ion, of which I enclose a copy, that they might have the benefit of a supply of convicts, properly .selected, to satisfy the waut ot labour which is urgently felt in that district.

14. For these reasons, until the recorded vote of the Legislative Council in favour of sending convicts to the colony on certain conditions, shall have been recalled by an equally formal proceeding, Her Majesty's Government are uot prepared to abandon the measure, but as it appears, as well from the petition to which I have just adverted as from the pioct i cuhn»!> in an opposite sense at Sydney and Port l'billip, that convicts are much more needed and wvll be far more willingly tcceived at Moreton Bay than in the other distiicta of the colony ; for the present at leust, tho^e that are dent to the colony will be directed to thut quarter. A ship will accordingly be despatched almosi immediately to that destination with convicti, who will be carefully chosen for good conduct bincc their hetitences ; mid they will be followed by an equal number of free emigrants.

15. Iv conclusion, I have only to add thufc whenever I may receive your report of the further deliberations of the Legislative Council on this important subject, the views finally adopted by that body will not full to receive the early and serious attention of her Majesty's Government. 1 have the honor to he, sir, Your most obedient humble servant, GIIEY. Governor Sir Charles Fitz Roy, &c.

[lleieis enclosed a letter to Earl Grey from a few Moreton Bay squaltcis, pr.iytng that two ships laden with convicts muy be sent to Moieton Bay evoiy year.