CONVICT ERA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 283, 29 November 1937, Page 5

CONVICT ERA.

N.S.W. CONTROVERSY. COMING CELEBRATIONS. COMMITTEE UNDER FIRE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 25. As the prepp rations for our eesquicentenary celebrations progress there still seems to be very substantial doubt whether the committee in charge ofj arrangement* will insist on carrying out its determination not to allow any reference to convicts or our convict era to intrude into the proceedings. The officials still seem anxious to perpetrate this outrage on historical truth, but they have been subjected to such severe criticism on this point during the past two or three months that they may feel compelled to give way.

Early Development. Scores of people, many of them extremely well informed about our early history, have written to the newspapers pointing out the absurdities that will become patent if any attempt is made to depict the early development of New South Wales and Australia without reference to convicts. This week a correspondent has written to the "Sydney Morning Herald" tc. remark that James Ruse, famous in our history as the man who first planted and harvested wheat in Australia, was a convict, and therefore he must be ruled out of the celebrations.

James Ruse was not only the founder of our wheat industry, but he was our first settler and our first land grantee. When his sentence had expired, Governor Phillip, who describes Ruse as "an industrious convict," put him in possession of one acre of cleared land and built him a hut. This was in 1789, and Ruse soon made such a success of this experiment that he was shortly [afterward jrranted an area of 30 acres 'near Parramatta —our first wheat farm.

Courageous Pioneers. If the Celebrations Committee and some of the Ministers go their way, Ruse will not be mentioned officially next year, and so with the many hundreds of courageous and hard-working men and women who after their sentences — in many cases cruelly disproportionate to their offences—had expired, played a splendid part in opening up the continent and preparing the way for the to come.

Perhaps the most interesting contribution to this controversy has been made by Mr. H. Rumsey. who is well known as president of our Society. He reminds us that next year we are to celebrate the arrival of ths> first fleet at Sydney on January 20. 1788. That fleet conveyed about 10W"; persons, of whom one third werej officials and marines and two tnird'j convicts, transported, in many instance*.! for offences that would seem to require but a trivial penalty to-day. Careful Student. Mr. "Rumsey. who is a careful student of our historical record, lias reached the conclusion that "the unprecedented success of this scheme of colonisation was as much to the credit of men andi women who came out as prisoners and remained as permanent settlers, as iti was to the officers under whose direction and control they were placed." Of course, some of these convicts 1 richly deserved punishment ,and the {worst of them after escape or emancipation took to the bush, turned bandit ;and were shot down or otherwise jexterminated. But the majority of the "tieket-of-lleave" men and women lived to become idecent citizens, to rear families, and in many cases to develop into prosperous and respected citizens.

"It is these latter men and women." says Mr. Rumsey. "that we are to honour, and if they had the handicap of a bad start, so much the more credit to them for rising above it and becoming respected citizens who*e descendants may now be found in every walk of life in our midst." Meaning Clear. This last sentence carries -with it a degree of irony which one cannot fully appreciate without living in New South Wales, and Mr. Rumsey has made hi-* meaning perfectly clear to us all by asking if Mr. Dunningham and the rest

of the "no convict" brigade intend to carry through the celebrations without reference to the names or families of men "whose stories have been public property for years."

Mr. Rumsey concludes with a little historical parallel which, under the circumstances, seems quite worth remembering.

"It does seem rather an anomaly that the man who would brag of an ancestor who had been imprisoned in the Tower of London three or four centuries ago would be ashamed to admit that his great-grandfather was sent to Botany Bav."

j Perhaps the irritated outburst of Mr. ISpooner when he first heard of Mr. Duiiniiigham's proposal to erase the hated word "'convict" from our annals suits the situation as well as anything else. "For goodness sake stop this snobbery*" said the Minister for Local Government, arid it is high time that his colleagues hearkened to him.