Abolish transportation, and there will be no difficulty in procuring emigrants for those colonies. But still it may, and not unjustly, be objected to me by some persons who might ask: "Would you promote emigration to communities which you have described as so demoralised? Would you send innocent persons to places where they would be almost certain to be contaminated by intercourse with the guilty?" I answer, that the amount of emigration should be such as would, within a very short period, entirely swamp the convict population, and completely alter the moral character of those communities. If only a few thousand emigrants were sent out every year, a considerable portion would, in all probability, be demoralised. If, however, their numbers were to be reckoned by tens of thousands, the convict portion of the population would soon become an inconsiderable minority. As this subject was discussed last year in a debate on the motion of my honourable friend the member for Sheffield I will not repeat the calculations, from which I inferred that if (supposing transportation abolished) 100,000 persons were to emigrate during the next four years to the penal colonies those communities would be completely purified and amply provided with labour. They would then take their proper station amongst the colonies of England. They would be qualified to receive those free institutions without which they can never be well governed, but which it would be absurd to bestow upon them as long as they are gaols, or one-half of their population is composed of offenders.

The expense of such an amount of emigration would probably be 1,500,000l.; estimating, in

accordance with the returns of the Emigration Commissioners, that 15l. a head is the average expense of emigration to New South Wales. I will, however, suppose that 2,000,000l. would cover all possible expenses. This sum could easily be raised at 4 per cent. on the security of the sales of waste lands, provided there were the guarantee of an Act of Parliament that it should all be expended in emigration. There would be ample security for the payment of the interest (which would amount to £80,000 a year) out of the yearly sales of land, for during the last three years the Land Fund of New South Wales has exceeded 130,000l. a year and no one can for a moment doubt that it would greatly increase, if emigration. were carried on to the extent proposed. In support of this plan I refer honourable members to last year's report of the Emigration Commissioners, in which they will find that a similar plan of borrowing 2,000,000l. for the purposes of emigration, has been proposed and approved of by a large body of the most intelligent and extensive proprietors in New South Wales.

It is necessary that there should be the guarantee of an Act of Parliament that the whole of the loan should be applied to the purposes of emigration. First, because the perpetual changing of the Colonial Minister (we generally have a new one, unacquainted with his business, every nine months) renders it impossible to place any reliance in promises which his successor is not bound to keep. Secondly, because the Land Fund, which it was always supposed in this colony, and generally believed in this country, to be intended for emigration,

has been appropriated by the Government to other purposes. And the colonists most loudly and, in my opinion, most justly complain of this act as a most grievous abuse, as a sort of robbery. From the commencement of the sale of lands in 1832 to the end of 1838, 571,000l. has been paid into the Land Fund. Of this sum not above 171,000l. have been employed in emigration. Of the remainder, 138,000l. may have been expended in the sale, management, etc., of the land. The residue, amounting to 262,000l. has been alienated from the purposes originally intended, and applied by the Government to the support of the enormous police and gaol establishments, which transportation has rendered necessary, and which the colonists, with no small show of justice, contend ought to be defrayed by this country. Such was the state of the Land Fund in the beginning of 1839. Since that period the same system has been pursued, and I am credibly informed that the Land Fund has been completely exhausted by the drains upon it by the Government. Indeed, in the middle of last year the noble lord, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, was obliged to order the discontinuance of emigration to New South Wales. Therefore, unless a loan be raised, emigration to New South Wales must stop, to the most serious injury of that colony, as every person well acquainted with this subject will readily acknowledge.

I now thank the House for the patient manner in which it has listened to me. I have been obliged, for fear of wearying the House, to pass over many points of considerable importance. I hope, however, that I have succeeded in proving the following

positions. That transportation is a very bad punishment. That it is not susceptible of any improvement. That it ought, therefore, to be abolished. That the best substitute for it is penitentiaries. That the penitentiary system would be less expensive than any of the proposed modifications of transportation. That a large additional outlay of public money would not be required in order to establish penitentiaries, and to bestow upon this country the best system of secondary punishments in the world. And, lastly, for the sake of the moral well-being and economical prosperity of the penal colonies, that systematic emigration should be carried on in the manner I have proposed.

I will conclude by moving : "That the punishment of transportation should be abolished, and the penitentiary system of punishment be adopted in its stead as soon as practicable"; and: "That the funds to be derived from the sales of waste lands in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land ought to be anticipated by means of loans on that security, for the purpose of promoting extensive emigration to those colonies."

EXTRACT FROM SPEECH ON THE DISCONTINUANCE OF TRANSPORTATION TO VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.

MAY 20, 1851.

[The discontinuance of transportation to New South Wales after 1840 caused a severe strain upon the resources of Van Diemen's Land as a receptacle for convicts. Parliament was opposed to the policy of dealing with criminals in England, so that there was a continuous stream of convicts to Van Diemen's Land. A scheme of Mr. Gladstone to found a new convict colony in the north-east of Australia came to nothing, and an attempt to reintroduce a modified system of transportation into New South Wales also ended in failure. The case for the British Government, in its attempt to run counter to the feelings of the colonies, is well stated by Lord Grey in his "Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell's Administration," but it was doubtless fortunate for the Empire that the Colonial Office passed, in 1852, into the more pliant hands of Sir John Pakington, who at once discontinued transportation to Van Diemen's Land. The following extracts are added to complete the story of Sir W. Molesworth's Parliamentary connection with the subject of transportation. After a reply from Sir George Grey, and other speeches, the debate came to a premature close by the House being counted out.]

After dealing with the moral and social evils resulting from transportation to Van Diemen's Land, and the breach of faith involved in its continuance after the announcement by Sir W. Denison of its abolition, Sir W. Molesworth continued:

In April, 1850, an event occurred which doubled the excitement in Van Diemen's Land against transportation. It was the arrival at Hobart Town of the ship Neptune, with its cargo of convicts, which the colony of the Cape had rejected. This event produced the deepest indignation amongst the colonists