LECTURE XII.

EMPLOYMENT OF CONVICT LABOUR.-REASONS ASSIGNED FOR THE NEW-MODELLING, OR ABOLITION, OF THE PUNISHMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, AS FAR AS THEY CONCERN THE RESULTS OF MEASURES LATELY TAKEN BY

COLONIES.

THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT.

THE employment of the labour of transported convicts in colonies is necessarily so limited in extent, that inquiries relating to it may appear altogether insignificant, when compared with those suggested by the interests which we had under consideration in my last lecture. The subject presents, nevertheless, some important economical questions, and has lately received, for the first time, the attention which it merits on the part of the public of this country.

The Portuguese appear to have been the first European nation who employed transportation and penal labour in the colonies as a mode of punishment, and offenders are still frequently banished to their African settlements. The Paulistas, or people of San Paulo, in Brazil, renowned for their energy as discoverers and their ferocity towards the unfortunate natives of South America, are said to have sprung in great proportion from the original stock of convicts. England adopted, in the seventeenth century, the system of transportation to her North American plantations, and the example was propagated by Cromwell, who introduced the practice of selling his political captives as slaves to the West Indians. But the number of regular convicts was

too small, and that of free labourers too large, in the old provinces of North America, to have allowed this infusion of a convict population to produce much effect on the development of those communities, either in respect of their morals or their wealth. Our own

times are the first which have witnessed the phenomena of communities in which the bulk of the working people consists of felons serving out the period of their punish

ment.

The penal colonies under the British government are now four in number-New South Wales, Van Dieman's Land, Bermuda, and Norfolk Island. In Bermuda there are about 900 convicts only, working in gangs, and employed exclusively in the government dock-yards. Norfolk Island is used as a place of temporary punishment; originally, for convicts banished from New South Wales for first offences; now, in some cases, for convicts sent thither direct from the United Kingdom, who are employed there in severe labour, and obtain the privilege of removal to New South Wales by good conduct. The two Australian colonies contain at this time more than 40,000 convicts; of these it appears that about 26,000 are assigned; that is, made over to settlers as servants to perform compulsory labour; the remainder are disposed in the following ways, as enumerated by Colonel Arthur:-" In the service of Govern"ment, in the road gangs, in the chain gangs, in the "penal settlements, or in the chain gangs in the penal settlements." + From 1787 to 1836, 75,200 had been

* In the middle of the last century Maryland was estimated to contain 107,208 inhabitants, of whom 1981 only were convicts. Yet Maryland was one of the principal receptacles of criminals. Sadler on Population, i. 447.

+ Number of convicts in 1836:-New South Wales, 27,831; Van Dieman's Land, 16,968. Assigned (1833), New South Wales, 20,207; Van Dieman's Land, 6475.- Report of Committee on Transportation.

transported to New South Wales, and 27,757 to Van Dieman's Land. The average of late years has been about 3,500 to the former colony, and 2000 to the latter. These facts are furnished by the Report of the Transportation Committee of 1838.

The causes of the early and rapid growth of wealth in these colonies are not difficult to trace. They were, in fact, almost wholly artificial- on the one hand an ample supply of labour, on the other a large government expenditure. Instead of being forced to support their own servants, the colonists received in truth a bounty for employing them, their produce being taken off their hands by the government at high prices, for the purpose of maintaining those very labourers. "The ex

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traordinary wealth of these colonies," to borrow the language of the same report, "was occasioned by the regular and increasing supply of convict labourers. "The convicts were assigned to settlers as slaves. They were forced to work in combination, and raised "more produce than they could consume; for this surplus government provided a market, by maintaining military and convict establishments, which have cost "this country above seven millions of public money. "Thus the government first supplied the settlers with

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labour, and then bought the produce of that labour: "the trade carried on was a very profitable one for the "settlers, as long as the demand of the government "exceeded the supply; and this excess of demand "over supply has continued up to a late period."

When the scales of the balance here indicated began to turn, it would be perhaps difficult to ascertain: but it appears certain, although the annual expenditure of these colonies has averaged of late years half a million, that they no longer depend in any essential degree

on that government expenditure for their prosperity. Although a certain amount of stimulus is still given to production by the artificial demand, it is no longer the main economical feature in the state of their

society. And it becomes of less importance every day, as the increase of the colonial resources is far more rapid and certain than the increase of the government expenditure. These settlements have, therefore, passed out of the first stage of their progress, that of dependence and infancy, into the second, or stage of adolescence. And situated as they now are, it becomes important to trace the effects produced on their condition by the continued influx of convict labour, and the probable results of its discontinuance. These are both economical and moral; and the latter are so intimately connected with the former, that it would be treating the subject unworthily to pass them over on the present occasion, although with us they must of necessity be secondary objects of inquiry.

1. In the first place, the effect of the extensive introduction of convicts on the progress of population is to be considered. The great disproportion between the sexes, which is unavoidable under such circumstances, necessarily prevents it from making a rapid advance. Accordingly, the increase of numbers in Australia has been very slow, while that of wealth has been uncommonly rapid. It appears that the convict emigration alone into New South Wales, between 1788 and 1833, was larger than the whole population of the colony in the latter year, while there had been a considerable free emigration also; consequently, the deaths in that interval had very greatly exceeded the births. But a population which grows in this manner, by adult emigration and not by propagation, must be, for some time at least, favourably constituted with respect to

the productiveness of labour: there must be a smaller number of unproductive persons, such as children, and to a certain extent women, to support out of the wages of labour-just as it is cheaper to import slaves than to breed them. But slaves are short-lived; the success of the speculation in their flesh and blood greatly depends on their dying before they are past labour: convicts, in a healthy country like Australia, grow old: it may be doubted therefore whether, after a certain period, such a population is really more effective than one which grows by natural movement.

2. The labour of convicts is probably the dearest of all labour; that is, it costs more to some portion or other of society. The master himself obtains it cheaper than the services of a free labourer; but this is only because the state has already expended a much greater sum than the difference on the maintenance and restraint of the convict*; and, when obtained, it is not in the long run equally efficient or valuable. In our colonies the convicts, as we have said, are divided into two classes, those employed on public works, and those assigned as servants to individuals. From the first of these classes it is probable that as much labour is obtained, for an equal expense, as would be procured from hired labourers, at that high rate of wages which prevails in young communities. But with reference to the other class, that of assigned servants, the case is very different. The difficulty of employing them profitably and at the same time rendering their condition one of punishment is extreme. The ordinary labourer may be compelled, by dread of severer coercion, to perform a certain quantity of work; about two thirds of what would be done

* Lord John Russell (referring to the evidence of a gentleman in Van Dieman's Land) says, that the difference in favour of convict over free labour, to the master, is 137. head. per Mirror of Parliament, 1840, p. 3524.