The following post records a response to a proposed limited reintroduction of the convict system in Australia. Limited in the sense that convicts could only be imported to supply a strongly felt need for shepherds on the many unfenced sheep runs in the Colony of New South Wales. To give some context, Australia was used as a convict colony from the time of the first fleet in 1788. Unrest about continuing convict labour in the 1830s saw the British Government establish a commission of inquiry headed by Sir William Molesworth in 1837.
“Molesworth, a Radical Member of Parliament, was sympathetic to causes such as colonial self-government and the abolition of slavery, and his commitment to these two causes had a significant impact on how he conducted the commission.” (https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/convict-transportation).
Emerging from the Molesworth Report NSW decided to cease importation of convicts in 1840. The flow on effect was that the cheap, almost slave-like, labour supplied by convicts for tasks such as shepherding created a gap in labour supply. It was a gap that could not be filled by other immigrants as the people owning and managing the pastoral operations were not offering enough money for the task, having been accustomed to the very cheap convict labour.
This post is an amalgamation of four articles that appeared in The Sydney Herald in the January of 1842.
- The Sydney Herald. (1842, January 20). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 - 1842), p. 2. Retrieved June 14, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12873399
- The Sydney Herald. (1842, January 21). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 - 1842), p. 2. Retrieved June 14, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12873424
- The Sydney Herald. (1842, January 24). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 - 1842), p. 2. Retrieved June 14, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28652755
- The Sydney Herald. (1842, January 26). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 - 1842), p. 2. Retrieved June 17, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12873460
It is a fascinating piece of persuasive writing. So worth reading not just for the history it contains, but also as an example of persuasive text.
IS THE REVIVAL OF THE CONVICT SYSTEM DESIRABLE? I
"In his opinion, the best interests of the Colony would be forwarded by the discontinuance, at some future day which it was impossible to fix, of the transportation system. * * * Transportation had been of great advantage to this Colony: but there might be other considerations of greater weight and more importance than the mere acquisition of wealth." - Speech of Mr. JAMES MACARTHUR in Council, October 23, 1840.
In our late articles on the subject of Transportation and Assignment, we confined our attention to the one point, Is it likely that England would herself consent to a revival of the system in New South Wales? We endeavoured to answer the question in the negative, on the ground, that the Parliamentary investigations of 1837 mid 1838 had produced on the public mind so strong an impression, as to have led to the total discontinuance, in respect of this Colony, both of transportation and of assignment, within the short period of about two years after the publication of the Parliamentary Report; and we inferred, that after so unequivocal a demonstration of the national will, it was utterly improbable either that British opinion should of itself have veered round again, within little more than another twelvemonth, to the opposite point, or that such a revolution could be brought about by any representations of parties so suspiciously interested as the settlers of New South Wales. This inference, however, has been boastfully met by a reference to two articles that appeared last year in the Quarterly Review and United Service Journal respectively. Did we not well know how easy it is for men of influence, having a private interest in the question, to procure the admission into British journals of plausibly written articles on Australian topics, we might have been somewhat startled by the publications referred to; but, knowing this, and perceiving in at least one of these articles, that in the Quarterly, the most undisguised evidence of the source from which it had flowed, we can have no hesitation in rejecting them as anything approaching to a sign of change in English opinion. Nor do the articles, either in the facts they adduce, the arguments they employ, or the amount of ability they display, excite the slightest apprehension of their reconciling the people and Government to a system so recently reprobated, and so authoritatively put down. The writers betray throughout that, in each step of their proconvict advocacy, "the wish was father to the thought" — the wish, not of generous patriotism, but of private interests — the wish, not of men looking far into futurity, but of men intent on securing the narrow convenience of the passing hour.
In so far as these penmen have urged the impolicy of retaining the convicts in Great Britain, they may, for aught we know, have reasoned aright; but we protest against the mixing up of this consideration with the destinies of New South Wales.
If the mother country find it necessary that her offending children should be banished from her bosom, there is, in the vast range of her colonial territories, "ample room and verge enough" for their safe and profitable lodgment, without inflicting their vices, and miseries, and degradation upon this now free and prosperous community. Transportation may, and in this country it has proved to be, a good pioneer of colonization. But here the work of pioneers has been already done. We want no more of them. Let them go into the untrodden wilderness; and may peace, and prosperity, and reformation attend them!
But, for ourselves, is the revival of the convict system desirable? Were the QUEEN'S Government to offer us the option of accepting or rejecting it, how ought we to act? Guided by large views of our country's welfare; caring for our posterity as well as for ourselves; looking at Eastern Australia, not only as a wide expanse of sheep-walks, but as the germ of a mighty empire, and as the moral and religious nurse of the yet barbarous myriads of Polynesia; remembering, in short, in the emphatic language of Mr. JAMES MACARTHUR, that there are "considerations of greater weight and more importance than the mere acquisition of wealth;" should we do well to nip our country's nascent freedom and purity in the bud, and to pray that her green plains might be again polluted with the dregs of British and Irish gaols? We trust that the great majority of our right-minded fellow-colonists would make a better choice; but we deeply regret to find, that some of them, in whose moral rectitude and Christian philanthropy we had long been accustomed to repose unshaken confidence, are beginning to waver, and to betray signs of a morbid desire to bring back the ancient curse of convict labour, with its changing fetters, its disgusting gaol yard uniform, its scowling brows, its vindictive glances, its muttered maledictions, its reeking depravities, its harrowing stimulants of the triangles and the cat-o'-nine-tails, its fierce resentments, long perhaps smothered in the guilty breast, but sooner or later bursting out in acts of insubordination, in daring rebellion, in "taking to the bush," in pillage, arson, and blood. Some of our amiable and religious flockmasters are craving for these abominations, on the plea that they must be supplied with cheap labour. They flatter themselves that they have hit upon the grand secret of political alchemy, whereby convict labour may be separated from all its dross, and be reduced to pure gold. They acknowledge that in the ore it is a filthy substance, of which there is pollution in the very touch; that heretofore it has been introduced into the Colony in all its native ugliness, and has worked like a moral gangrene upon our social character and our public reputation; but they have found a crucible wherein to melt down the odious mass, and whence they can produce a metal without alloy — a species of convict labour combining the sweet industry of the bee with the gentle innocence of the dove!
All the mischiefs of felon labour, they contend, were caused by its assignment in towns, and to other occupations than that of sheep-breeding. Alter the old system in these particulars, and see what blessed results will follow! Let the convicts be driven into the pasture grounds, forbidden to associate with any but "pure Merinoes," or to handle any implement less poetical than a shepherd's crook, — and all their vicious habits, all their criminal propensities, will drop off like the sheath of a chrysalis! Let them call no man master who is not the master of sheep, and they cannot fail to become reformed characters! The innocent avocations of a shepherd, and the mild sway of a wool-growing master, will together act like a spell upon these crime-stained outcasts, extirpating the seeds of vice from their hearts, washing the Ethiope tinge from off their outer man, and clothing them with all the virtues and the graces befitting the primitive simplicity of pastoral life!
Such appears to be the theory of the lovers of convict shepherds. Such are the flimsy promises with which they would cajole HER MAJESTY to revive among us the horrors of convict slavery, their true object being, all the while, the augmentation of their own incomes, the extension and consolidation of their own fortunes, their own personal consequence, their own family influence.
(To be continued.)
IS THE REVIVAL OF THE CONVICT SYSTEM DESIRABLE? II.
"Transportation had been of great advantage to this Colony: but there might be other considerations, of greater weight and more importance, than the mere acquisition of wealth." Mr. JAMES MACARTHUR'S Speech
In opposition to those who advocate a recurrence to convict labour, on condition that it should be restricted to the single vocation of sheep-tending, we have to contend that it is not desirable either for the convicts themselves, or for the mother country, or for the interests of the Colony.
I. IT IS NOT DESIRABLE FOR THE CONVICTS THEMSELVES.
Our opponents are pleased to hold a contrary opinion representing the life of a shepherd as the best kind of solitary imprisonment, having all the benefits of that mode of punishment, and none of its evils. We maintain, however, that his life, viewed as a system, is not solitary, is not imprisonment, and has none of the advantages for which that mode of punishment is approved.
1. The Convict shepherd's life is not solitary. — Even in the rare instances in which he is altogether shut out, for weeks together, from intercourse with his fellow-man, his social sympathies are awakened, and interested, and amused, by the animal creation. The feathered tenants of the grove, through their long gradations of rank from the tiny humming bird to the lordly eagle, with their gorgeous plumage, their cheerful melodies, and their evervarying gyrations; the kangaroo bounding across the plains the opossum scaling the giant trees — the emu pacing with majestic step — the black swan proudly sailing on the lake — the myriads of gay insects glittering in the air — the flocks committed to his pastoral charge, with the merry lambs frisking and gamboling all day long — and the very dog that crouches at his feet, and licks his hand, and obeys his nod and beck, — are the companions of his most sequestered hours, affording constant gratification to his eye, his ear, and his imagination, and banishing that oppressive sense of solitude and abstraction which belongs to the inmate of the cell. But we have said that the instances in which he is left wholly to the companionship of birds and beasts are rare. His hut-keeper, his brother shepherds, the visits of his overseer, beside the occasional appearance of way-farers through the bush, are so many links that connect him with the busy world, so many media through which he communicates with the masses of his kind, receives intelligence of passing events, and keeps up his interest in the great drama of life : they are his "loop-holes of retreat through which he peeps" at the outer world, and "sees the stir of the great Babel," though for the present he does not "feel the crowd." And every year will carry the streams of society nearer and nearer to the shepherd's haunts. The population of the interior is gaining ground with almost incredible rapidity. Within the five years from 1836 to 1841, the increase beyond the boundaries was in the astonishing ratio of more than 236 per cent., being upwards of 47 per cent, per annum! Already the shepherd has sufficient intercourse with his fellow to break that sense of isolation upon which the advocates of solitary confinement lay so much stress; already he has facilities for corresponding, by messages and by letters, with his old companions and his former haunts; already the newspaper, as well as now and then a talkative newsmonger, feeds his curiosity about the transactions that are going on in Sydney, in London, in all quarters of the globe; and as the tide of population continues to roll inward, this intercourse and these facilities must necessarily increase. So much then for the shepherds solitude.
2. The Convict shepherd's life is not imprisonment. His limbs are loaded with no fetters, his person is restrained by no stone walls, no grated windows, no bolted doors, no gruff turnkeys. He walks on the soft green earth, he breathes the purest air, he basks in the sun's cheerful ray; his prison is the mountain side or the smiling plain; his roof the blue vault of heaven; his fare wholesome and abundant; his mind free from fear, anxiety, or care. He is a free denizen of the wilderness. He may go or come — sleep or wake — work or play — stand true to his post of duty, or abscond in quest of more congenial employment, just as best suits his convenience or caprice. There are neither chains, nor locks, nor jailers, to coerce his movements. His person is as free as his will. — So much, then, for the shepherd's solitary imprisonment!
3. The Convict shepherd's life has none of the advantages of a prison. Generally speaking, "no man cares for his soul." The sound of the church-going bell never breaks upon his ear; the sacred pleasures of the sabbath never bring their tranquillizing influences to his heart; the solemnities of the sanctuary never appeal to his guilty conscience; the ministrations of GOD's servants never warn him of the sinner's danger, nor point him to the sinner's Friend. He is an outcast from the pale of Christian fellowship. He is abandoned to the gloom of his own ignorance, to the corruptions of his own nature. He may forget that there is a heaven above, or a hell beneath — that there is a GOD to judge him — that he has a soul to be saved. — And is this the way to reform guilty men? Is this the process of moral purification which is to transform the convicted felon into a good and virtuous citizen? Is this the new system of "prison discipline" which our Christian Government is to be taught by the Christian flockmasters of New South Wales? So much; then, for the reformatory tendencies of the convict shepherd's life !
Let us hear no more of the blessed " solitary imprisonment" of this new-fledged theory of "modified assignment." It has neither the safety of confinement nor the abstraction of solitude to recommend it to a moment's notice. It is a mere chimera of the wool-grower's brain — or rather, a mere pretext by which he hopes to blind the eyes of moral England, and to promote his own worldly interests.
II. IT IS NOT DESIRABLE FOR THE MOTHER-COUNTRY.
We have nothing to say to the economic argument, unless it be the passing remark thrown out in our former article-that if transportation be less expensive than other secondary punishments, England may have recourse to it without inflicting her felonry upon this country, which has already completed its full term of service us national turnkey. But, as the honorable gentleman who supplies our motto has well observed, there are " other considerations, of greater weight and more importance, than the mere acquisition of wealth;" and, as the Parliamentary Committee nobly avow, England "cannot consent to weigh the economical advantages of Transportation against its moral evils." The grand question for England is, would the proposed system of pastoral assignment be efficient as a punishment? Would it serve to deter her poor from crime? Would it strike terror into her half-starved populace, and so counteract the temptations to guilt with which poverty besets them? There can be but one honest answer — No ! Let it become generally known among the hungry and naked wretches who throng the streets and highways of Great Britain and Ireland, that convicts transported to Botany Bay are not shut up in gaols, not bound in fetters, not kept to hard labour; but that, on the contrary, they are sent into the rich valleys of a sylvan country, where their only toil is to tend a flock of sheep; where they are well fed and well clothed; where they are in a great measure masters of their own actions; where they breathe the most luxurious of climates; where they are strangers to all kinds of privation, hardship, and care; and where, when they have completed the short term of their sentence, or have obtained the earlier freedom of a ticket-of-leave, they may be joined by their families, and earn, by frugal and industrious habits, a more comfortable and independent subsistence than they could ever hope to realize in their native land — let this glowing picture of a transported felon's life in New South Wales become extensively circulated in England and Ireland — and circulated it would be, with embellishments far exceeding the truth — and what would be the effect? Why, it would be equivalent to a Royal Proclamation offering to the famished poor a comfortable home, a plentiful supply of food and clothing, and eventual independence, on condition that they would first break the laws of their country, and submit to be carried beyond sea at their country's expense !
And would our champions of transportation have England thus league herself with the great Tempter of our race? Would they persuade the British Government to gild crime with an extra charm — to strip Justice of her terrors — and to make the gaol a mere avenue to peace and plenty? Whatever may be their hopes and aims, we fervently trust that HER MAJESTY'S advisers will never so far forget their own high duties, and the interests of twenty-seven millions of their countrymen, as to yield to solicitations so selfish in their origin, and so pernicious in their tendencies.
(To be continued.)
IS THE REVIVAL OF THE CONVICT SYSTEM DESIRABLE? III
We have shown cause why the proposed revival of this system is not desirable, so far as regards the convict himself, and the mother-country. Not for the convict himself, because the theory of solitary imprisonment in an improved form upon which its advocates recommend it to the notice of England, is not only visionary, but in direct opposition to fact, the convict shepherd's life having; in it nothing that can properly be called either solitude or imprisonment, and none of those moral and religious accessories which belong to all well regulated prisons, and which so powerfully contribute to the reformation of their inmates. Not for the mother country, because the easy occupations and comfortable circumstances of the mode of life to which it is proposed that the convicts should be assigned, would make transportation, instead of a punishment, a reward, and thereby act upon the British poor, not as a warning against crime, but as a strong inducement to its perpetration. We have now to show why we think
III. IT IS NOT DESIRABLE FOR THE COLONY.
The argument of its advocates is, that woolgrowing is the grand staple of the country, upon the success of which the general prosperity depends; that of this success cheap labour is a vital element; that cheap free labour cannot be obtained; that convict labour has heretofore been found cheap and efficient : ergo, that a recurrence to convict labour is indespensable to the prosperity of the Colony.
There is here a mixture of truth and fallacy. That wool is the grand staple of New South Wales, no one can deny; but to argue from this postulate that to the cheap production of wool all other considerations must give way, is to assume that cheaply grown wool is literally and absolutely the only article upon which the colonists could thrive, and that great wealth and prosperity are synonymous terms. Highly as we prize our fleece, we are not prepared to acquiesce in the proposition that the existence of the Colony depends upon it. The congeniality of our climate and of our natural pastures for its profitable growth are not the only causes of its success : the almost exclusive devotedness of our capital and enterprise to that one pursuit, is another and a very material cause. Should circumstances occur to lessen or to divert that devotedness, we have confidence enough in the resources of this vast continent to believe that British skill, energy, and capital; would not be long in discovering other objects worthy of their attention. They have hitherto been concentrated in the fleece, because the fleece has presented an obvious source of profit; the fleece has hitherto rewarded its growers, because it has thus been the one centre of attraction; but let its attraction diminish, and its growers be compelled to transfer to other pursuits the same ardour and determination which have been absorbed in wool-growing, and we should have no fear for the result: the Colony would still prosper; its prosperity might, perhaps be less rapid, less magical; but it would be equal to our reasonably wants comforts, and enjoyments.
The advocates of convict labour attach to wealth a greater importance than belongs to it. To quote from our motto, once more "there are other considerations of greater weight and more importance than the mere acquisition of wealth:'' The simple possession of riches does not constitute either a wise, a virtuous, a respectable, or a happy community. If it possess no higher qualities than affluence or luxury, it may indeed present a scene of sensual gratification and voluptuous ease, but it can have no pretensions to rational enjoyment, to social wellbeing, or to national honour. In what ways convict-gotten wealth would thus degrade Australia, we shall have to point out in the sequel. But before we proceed to these more weighty topics, let us bestow a few words upon the question of cheapness.
1. Convict labour is not cheap. This assertion we are aware, will be regarded by some persons as a downright heresy; for nothing is more proverbial, in their mouths, than that convict labour is of all labour the cheapest. We have many intelligent Colonists on our side, however, when we say, we believe the proverb to be a mere fiction. Looking only at the bare fact, that the convict servant has no remuneration, further than his food, raiment, and lodging, the proverb would seem self-evident; but looking at convict labour as a whole, as a Colonial system, we think there, will be ample ground for the scepticism we have avowed. We doubt this cheapness as regards the individual employer; we doubt it still more as regards the community at large. When the employer considers, that his convict labourer rarely performs even half the quantity of an efficient man's work; that that half is badly done; that his convict frequently robs him, not only of his time, but of his property, that he corrupts the other servants, teaching them to be as idle and dishonest as himself; that he is insubordinate, and has to be taken, to the master's loss in many ways, before the bench of Magistrates, whose sentence of imprisonment or flagellation is another source of loss, causing a still longer suspension of work, and souring the culprit's mind with sullenness and revenge; that he not unfrequently runs away, joins the nearest band of bushrangers, and acquaints them with the secrets of his master's premises and property;— when the employer places all these, and the many other evils inseparable from the assignment system, in their proper position as items in his profit and loss account, we think he can hardly fail of arriving at the conclusion, that the loss of convict labour counterbalances the supposed profit of its cheapness, and that the supposed loss of an honest yeoman's wages is more than counterbalanced by the productiveness of his work, and the propriety of his conduct.
It is not cheap to the community. During the last six years and a-half, the assignment system has cost the Colony, in Police and Gaol Establishments alone, much more than half a million sterling; and if to this be added the cost of gaol buildings, of judicial expenses rendered necessary by the presence of convicts, and of the combined efforts of whole districts for the suppression of bushranging, we may safely say, the system, within that brief period, has burthened the country with an outlay of a good round million! A sum which would have sufficed to introduce full fifty thousand "sound and valuable emigrants." Let transportation continue to be prohibited, and this enormous expenditure will gradually subside, and the British Government may be induced in some way to reimburse at least a portion of our Police and Gaol Expenses; let the present attempt to procure its revival be carried into effect, and this incubus upon our revenue must remain for an indefinite period, nor can we hope that the British Treasury will ever hear a word about refunding.
Convict labour, then, as a whole, is not cheap. If it were, the community at large ought to participate in its benefits; for to allow the flockmasters to monopolize the whole, would be an act of gross injustice to all other employers. We could follow out this point to a considerable length, but believing as we firmly do, that the cheapness exists nowhere but in the imaginations of our opponents, we dismiss the subject with this mere allusion.
Another reason why we think the proposed revival of assignment not desirable is, that.
2. lt would stamp the calling of a shepherd with indelible disgrace. ln all slave-holding countries it has been found, that any class of occupations assigned to slaves has been held too degrading for free labourers to submit to; and so it would be with the pastoral occupations of New South Wales. Let them, as is now proposed, be once declared by the Government to be the appropriate and only employment of assigned convicts, end no free labourer, having a due regard for his character and for the respectability of his family, would either accept them himself, or permit them to be accepted by his children. The trade of a shepherd would be marked with the gaol-brand : it would be distinguished as "THE FELON'S OCCUPATION." The name of "a shepherd" would carry a stigma in its very sound. It would be a sufficient proof of infamy to say of a man, "He is a shepherd!" The emancipated convict would sneak of his past days of degradation as the days "when he was a shepherd." The offspring of a convict, when twitted by a cruel enemy with his base alliance, would be vilified as "the son of a shepherd!" The last extremity of debasement is now to be reduced to beggary;— it would then be, to be "forced to turn shepherd!" Our highwaymen, bushrangers, and murderers, would be known as "runaway shepherds!" The traveller would fear nothing so much as to meet "armed shepherds!" Our wives and children; when unavoidably left for a season in their solitary habitations without the protection of their husbands and fathers, would be in nightly terror of "a visit from the shepherds!" All that is hateful in vice, despicable In degradation, and terrific in outrage, would be associated throughout the Colony with the name of "shepherd!"
The consequence of all this would be, that as an occupation for honest men, shepherding would be ruined; and the flockmasters would be brought to the alternative of making the convict system perpetual, or having no shepherds at all.
(To be continued.)
lS THE REVIVAL OF THE CONVICT SYSTEM DESIRABLE? IV.
In our first two articles we showed why the revival of this system is not desirable for the convict himself, viewed as a system of reformation, nor for the mother country, viewed as a system of punishment. In the third we stated two reasons why it is not desirable for the Colony, namely 1. Because, taken as a whole, as a Colonial system, it is not cheap—not cheap to the individual employer, not cheap to the community at large; and, 2. Because it would stamp the calling of a shepherd with indelible disgrace, thereby shutting out the services of free labourers, whether native-born or immigrant, and reducing the flockmaster to the alternative of making the penal character of the Colony perpetual, so as to keep up a constant supply of convict shepherds, or having no shepherds at all. Our next objection to its revival is, that
3. It would be injurious to the moral welfare of the Colony. — It is an axiom in political science, as well as in the discipline of the nursery and the school-room, that "evil communications corrupt good manners." If the students of a college not only permitted, but deliberately sought, the companionship of youths of notoriously abandoned character, defending their vicious choice by the plea that these reprobates were necessary to their sports or to their studies, what would be thought of them by their parents and preceptors? But if the parents and preceptors themselves were so far to forget their duties as to throw open their doors to all the profligate lads of the neighbourhood, and invite them to mingle freely with their pupils and their sons, what would the public think of them, but that they had lost their senses? And if the parents were to go a step farther, and invite these reprobates to visit their private dwellings, and to associate with their daughters as well as with their sons, would they not be universally denounced as a disgrace to the parental name? And yet in principle this conduct would be a perfect counterpart of that pursued by our advocates of convict restoration. They seek to introduce into their country the very worst description of human beings — men not of evil repute only, but whom the free ordeal of trial by jury has convicted of crime, and branded with the deepest infamy. They seek to bring in these criminals by thousands upon thousands, and by fresh thousands every year; to bring them within reach of their thresholds and their hearths, exposing their sons and daughters to the demoralising influences of those "evil communications" which not only "corrupt good manners," but endanger every principle of virtue and happiness. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump;" but these gentlemen are doing their utmost to fling into our social circle the leaven of iniquity, not by little morsels, but by large masses. By the formation of schools, the building of churches, and the support of a Christian Ministry, they are endeavouring to counteract the moral poison; and yet, in the strangest spirit of inconsistency, they are doing that which would spread the poison all over the land, and fearfully add to the virulence of its operations. While with one hand they are building up, with the other they are for pulling down. While with one hand they wield an apparatus for quenching the flames of vice and irreligion, with the other they would scatter firebrands to increase the conflagration.
The objection to this irruption of felons, on the ground of their depravity, is not the only one: there is another, which no sophistry can either surmount or alleviate, — which no good citizen, no sound Christian, can contemplate without a shudder. We allude to the circumstance of their being of one sex. Our convict-seeking flockmasters want men convicts, and men-convicts only. The force of our objection on this head cannot be fully expressed in print without risk of indelicacy; but the reflecting reader will perceive it in his own mind. Of the persons now living in the Colony, brought hither by transportation, there are 39,000 males to 6,700 females, leaving a deficiency of nearly 33,000 females. Of the whole number of convicts transported, from the commencement of the Colony to the end of the system in the year before last, 51,000 were males, and only 8,700 females, being a deficiency of 42,300 females; or the enormous disproportion of 100 males to 17 females. This unnatural state of things, revolting to every correct feeling of the human breast, was, one would have thought, quite bad enough : but it was innocent and amiable, compared with the state of things now sought to be established. For whereas the old Transportation System admitted of some females, though out of all proportion to the males, the new system, "modified and improved," will admit of no females at all! Its sole object is to provide and keep up an ample stock of shepherds. Women must therefore be kept away, for to introduce single women into the pasture-grounds would be to inundate them with profligacy; and to allow the men-shepherds to marry, would be fatal to the main consideration of the whole — cheapness — entailing upon the master, the extra burthen of wives and children so support.
Taking the average of late years, we should thus have an annual importation of between 3000 and 4000 convict men, without one convict woman ! There is already in the Colony a most deplorable inequality of sexes, brought to pass by the old system; but this would be not only to perpetuate the evil, but to make it worse and worse every succeeding year.
Now, we put it to any man, what would be the moral tendency, of this gigantic scheme of wholesale celibacy? What would be its effects upon the shepherds, the convict men-shepherds, themselves? How would it act upon their passions? How would it reconcile them to the supposed solitude of the bush? What images would be most familiar to their imaginations? Accustomed as they have been to give the reins to all their appetites, and to drain the cup of licentiousness to its very dregs, how would this unnatural constraint contribute to that moral reformation of which its advocates so loudly vaunt?
But, besides its grosser evils, this forced celibacy would have the effect of raising up a large body of men who would feel none of those incentives to industry, patriotism, good order, morality, and religion, which the endearments of domestic relationship so beautifully supply. From the finer sympathies of our nature they would be utterly estranged; and what could be expected in lieu thereof, but the smouldering fires of every bad passion, which opportunities would not be wanting to call into fierce action, and to pour forth in destructive violence upon the frame-work of society?
One consequence of this never-ceasing fermentation of corrupted blood would doubtless be, that the interior of the country would be infested with organised hordes of banditti. As in Van Diemen's Land, some fifteen or twenty years ago, the flocks committed to these ruffians' care would be driven away and slaughtered by five hundred at a time. Stations would be pilfered of their stores — travelling in the bush would be full of danger — highway robbery, burglary, arson, rape, murder, would be crimes of daily recurrence, fixing the seal of outrage and blood to that "modified system of transportation and assignment" of which such high plaudits are now trumpeted abroad.
Another bad consequence of the system would be, that that division of caste which has heretofore cost the Colony so much internal discord, and so bitter a sacrifice of political rights, would be revived and perpetuated. The Emigrant class are now disposed to expunge all civil distinction between themselves and the
Emancipists, because they believe that time itself will soon blend the races into one indiscriminate brotherhood. But if Transportation be revived, the distinction of castes, with all its heart burnings and collisions, must revive also. And as we are soon to have a free Legislative Constitution, and a series of Municipal Institutions, the distinction would be more broadly marked, more invidiously upheld, and more fiercely contested, than it has been since the Colony began.
The inevitable effect of this internal demoralization and wretchedness would be to damn the character of New South Wales in the eyes of the world, and, of course, to scare away those men of capital, those respectable and virtuous families, who are now turning wistfully to our prosperous settlements, and disposed to flock to our shores by thousands and tens of thousands. The old stigma of "Botany Bay" would again cling to us, and we should become, as we were in years past, "a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse."
And for what purpose would our opponents expose the Colony to these fearful dangers? That they may grow cheap wool! We have shewn why we think this end would not be gained; but if it would, we earnestly ask, do they not demand a bounty upon wool "much more costly than the wool is worth? They claim a system of protection immeasurably more onerous to the community than that of the corn laws of England, and not a jot less disgusting than that of the late slave-trade of the British West Indies. They seek to multiply their flocks, to enhance their fleeces, to aggrandize their families, not only at the expense of our revenue, but at the heavier expense of our public peace, our public morals, our public character, our public happiness. Their system, in fine, attaches more consequence to the well-being of sheep, than to the well-being of souls.
We would implore our erring fellow colonists to reflect, that the difficulties which have tempted them to call back the convicts, are incident to the present crisis of our history, but are on that very account only temporary in their nature. We have just been relieved from the felon incubus, and left to the better resources of immigration. The change could not take place without more or less of convulsion. Old habits are broken in upon — old calculations disconcerted — old profits for a time reduced. But as we gradually become familiarized with the change, its irksomeness will wear off, its disadvantages will be surmounted. Free shepherds, in numbers equal to the growing demand, and at wages proportioned to the returns of wool, will ere long be attainable. When the shade of odium which still lingers on the shepherd's calling, from its having been so long in the hands of convicts, shall have disappeared — when the nature of its duties and circumstances shall have become more generally understood — and, above all, when flockmasters shall have contrived to make it more attractive in the eyes of free, men with their families, which is practicable without trenching upon ultimate profit — shepherds will come in troops; and such shepherds as, by honesty and judicious management, shall abundantly repay to their employers the extra cost of their own wages. Time and patience will assuredly bring this improved order of things to pass. The life of a shepherd will hereafter become hereditary; fathers will train up their sons to it; it will then be a trade thoroughly understood, being experimentally studied from the very cradle; and hence will arise improvements in all the little arts by which breeds may be advantageously crossed, fleeces improved, expenses curtailed, and profits enhanced.
Let our flockmasters thus cast their eyes upon the future, and not gaze with so narrow-minded an intentness upon the present. Let them think for their posterity, as well as for themselves. Let them look at the wool-trade in its relation to the other and higher interests of their adopted country, and be content that it should prosper by the ordinary means supplied by a beneficent Providence, and not seek to force it into an artificial prosperity by means which must be injurious to the moral welfare of the community, and fatal, in all human probability, to its advancement in the scale of civilized states.
We have thus stated, hastily and imperfectly, some of the considerations which have led us to believe that the proposed revival of the Convict System is not desirable; but that, on the contrary, it would be to New South Wales a heavier calamity than plague, pestilence, and famine.
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