THAT 'BIRTH STAIN.'

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 103, 3 May 1922, Page 4

THAT 'BIRTH STAIN.'

We sympathise with the Chin' Justice of New Soul li Wales in his protect against the stiema that is popularly attached to Australia on account of tlio convict system in the early days. There moot be itinhy people who remember this chapter in Australian hiotory to the exclusion of much Hint is Iwtter worth knowing. It is related of \Y. (!. Grace that in the midst of an iiply situation on the Sydney ( rieket (•round he remarked with deliberate loudness to a fellow raemlK-r of bis team. "What else can you expect from the descendants of convicts?' . This unjust remark, the provocation for which may have, been considerable, probably represented and stiil represents a pretty common attitude. I'oor Lord Beauehamp, on arriving to take up the Governorship of Xew South Wales, quoted Kipling's "birth-stain" line in a message to the people, and never lived down hie indiscretion. If a good Australian could re-arrnnge the early history of his country he would not include the convict system, which had some tigiy aspects, and complicated the problems confronting the infant nation. To suggest, however, thnt Australia must always bear the bar sinister because she once housed convicts, and some of them founded families, is absurd. The Chief Justice says that it was not the worst offenders who were transported from IJrllain. lie would not deny, we suppose, that among them were fiome pretty bad characters. Hut he might have added that large numbers of the men who were sent out of England under the incredibly harsh laws of those days were types of offenders who in these timee would be punished lightly. Many of them, indeed, would be granted probation, so that they might have every opportunity to live honest lives. Brfides. even granted that there was a convict taint at first, how long docs it last in a community! It is many years since transportation to Australia was slopped. If some of the most respectable citizens in any British community were to delve into their forefathers' history they niv.'ht come across Rome strange things. U there any family that could cay with assurance that it never had a criminal, or someone who should have been one. among its forebears?