Guide 3 to NSW State Archives relating to Responsible Government - OCR - Flipbook - Page 18
A Guide to New South Wales State Archives relating to Responsible Government
expected, it was dominated by the squatters ... it quickly showed hostility to ... the limits
placed on its own power under the Constitution (Act) of 1842".5 In May 1844 the Council
appointed a select committee to enquire into grievances connected with land. Then in
June another committee was appointed to consider all grievances not connected with
land. These two committees produced reports which were duly accepted by the Council.
It was recommended that the present minimum price of £1 per acre should be abolished,
and that the local Government should be given absolute control of Crown lands. It was
further recommended that the local government should be placed under the control of
the elected Council, and not controlled, as it was then, by the British Government.
During much of the 1830s and in the early 1840s the Colony suffered from a severe
shortages of labour. This originally was partially alleviated by cheap convict labour but
later by the newly arrived immigrants. Part of the proceeds of the sale of land in New
South Wales was used to pay for sending free emigrants to Australia: 78,282 came in
the years 1838-41, "and still there was a shortage of labour".6 By the late 1830s convict
assignment to private employers had virtually ceased, and it was not long thereafter that
transportation to New South Wales was abolished: "An Order-in-Council of May 22, 1840
made it no longer lawful to send convicts to New South Wales after August 1 of that
year. Thus the greatest barrier to self-government was removed, in spite of protests
from the Patriotic Association, and from the graziers of the Council. New South Wales
had now to be treated as a prosperous colony of free men."' With the cessation of
transportation, the arguments or conceptions that a convict colony could not be trusted
to manage its own affairs lost their validity.
The cessation of transportation, however, was one of the factors in the depression
occurring in the Colony in the early 1840s.
The colony, therefore, lost both the labour of convicts, and the money which had been
spent in New South Wales to maintain them (about £200,000 per year). Things were
complicated by a severe drought from 1838 to 1840, as well as by lack of labour and
capital. The result of all these combined causes was a spectacular slump. Prices far
below normal values, just as a few years before they had been far above them. ... The
price of land fell similarly, ... There were endless bankruptcies, banks were forced to
close, and some of the wealthiest men in the colony were brought to the verge of
ruin.9
When the British Government raised again the question of transporting convicts to New
South Wales in a modified form9, it roused strong opposition from the majority of the
colonists, although those who wished for cheap labour, any labour, such as the
squatters, were in favour of the revival. The Legislative Council at first did not wish to
have transportation revived (September 1847) but later changed its mind (in April
1848). This resulted in the arrival of convict "exiles". The arrival of the convicts aroused
a storm of protest in New South Wales, except in the Moreton Bay district where there
was still a great shortage of labour, "and when each of the few convict ships arrived, only
about one-third of the demand for convict servants could be supplied".19 The popular
outcry was heeded and in June 1849 the Legislative Council, again changing its mind,
passed a resolution protesting against the revival of transportation to NSW and asking
5
Ibid, p.120
6
Ibid, p.119
7
Ibid, p.107
Ibid, p.120
9
Gladstone to FitzRoy, Private and Confidential Despatch of 30 April 1846, Historical Records of
Australia I, 25, pp.34-37
10
Wood, op cit, p.145
State Records Authority of New South Wales
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