ANTI-TRANSPORTATION MEETING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 41, 18 October 1851, Page 3

ANTI-TRANSPORTATION MEETING.

A meeting- for the purpose of protesting against the continuance of transportation to the Australian Colonies, was held at the White Hart Inn, Christchurch, on Saturday last. Mr. Godley, on being requested to take the Chair, said,—lt was no light question which had brought them together on that occasion; their business was to pronounce their testimony on a matter affecting indirectly, but not less substantially, the best interests of themselves and their posterity. In colonizing- this country the people of Canterbury professed to have been actuated by something more than the ordinary motive ofbettering their material condition. They professed to have had in view the foundation of a polity based on the principles of religion and morality, the production, so far as was possible, of a fac-simile of England, and the transmission to their children, of such institutions and such influences as would guard them against the prevalent vices of modern colonization. With this view they had devoted a considerable proportion of their land fund to the purposes of religious education ; in conformity with the same view, too, they had striven, and would continue, until they were successful, to strive after the attainment of that civil freedom which had of late years been denied to British colonists. For these great and worthy objects they had made no small efforts and sacrifices, for they knew that without them, material prosperity was not worth having. They held, and this colony was intended as a. testimony before the world of their holding, that man was not made to live by bvead alone; that he was not sent into the world primarily for the purpose of melting tallow, or growing wool, but that all these secular and transitory objects ought to be subordinate and subservient to the great end of cultivating his immaterial and immortal nature. He might be asked what had all this to do with the question before the meeting? He answered that it had everything to do. There never was a question more intimately related to the first principles on which their plan of colonization was founded than this question of transportation. It was essentially a religious and moral question. Indeed he did not recollect to have met, in the course of his reading and observation, with a move striking and gratifying spectacle than that presented by the movement which he called on them to support that day. It was most gratifying to see a colonial community, which is so often stigmatized as habitually postponing higher considerations to the love of gain, to see such a community rising almost as one man to protest against a great moral wrong, and to assert a great moral principle, in the face of the strongest prima facie inducements of a material kind to submit to the wrong and abandon the principle. He blushed to find in the papers before ■him, on the one hand statesmen representing his own great and civilized country advocating on grounds of pecuniary advantage alone a policy which they dared not argue on higher grounds, while on the other hand the oppressed and sorely tempted colonists rested theii opposition, at least avowedly, and he believed truly, upon motives as noble and lofty as ever went to the support of a political cause. On the one hand, they heard of nothing but good roads, and public works, and plentiful labour, coupled frequently with sneers about the sentimental nonsense of apprehensions about convicts ; on the other, they heard a stein and uncompromising refusal to accept the mess of pottage tendered as the price of all that is most valuable to a nation's life. Such was the controversy on which their fellow colonists in Australia had called on the Canterbury settlers to pronounce ; and they must recollect that as they came before the public of those colonies with high claims, they would be naturally judged with corresponding severity. They had already shewn, he trusted, that in their opinion Church principles were not incompatible with a love of freedom, or with a resolute determination to stand up for civil rights. Let them show themselves ready to embark with equal ardour in a cause not less just and righteous, that of the preservation of the Australian colonies from the abominable opprobrium of being the cess-pool of British crime. He would now briefly lay before them the facts of the case, which were familiar to the public in Australia, but which the inhabitants of this settlement were perhaps not acquainted with. Mr. Godley then read a letter which had been addressed to him by the Secretary of the Australian League, and extracts

from accompanying- papers, shewing the nature, objects, and organization of that body, and the causes which had led to its formation. He then went on to say that it would be out of place for him to argue this question, from an English point of view. He would not attempt to prove, as he might prove, that transportation was the most costly and the least deterrent punishment ever devised, and that if it had the advantage of relieving- England annually of a certain number of desperate characters, it had the counterbalancing disadvantage of tempting in all probability an equal number of others: to crime. But he did not care if it had been as good a punishment as he believed it to be bad. He stood on Australasian ground and he denied the right of England to relieve herself at the cost of blighting the prospects and debasing the character of the nations that are growing up in the islands of the South. England was a country rich beyond all experience or calculation ; especially her appliances and means of civilization were the best and most effective in the world. If she could not use those means so as to prevent and punish crime within her own borders, as other nations, infinitely worse off, are compelled to do, she must bear, like other nations, the burden of her failure, but she bad no right to visit upon her unoffending and helpless dependencies the consequences of her statesmen's incapacity and her people's crimes. They had not the means of dealing with her criminals ; they were perfectly willing to deal with the crime which is the natural product of their own social diseases, but they had not the means of stemming a torrent of foreign criminals. They could not, if they would, keep up for such a purpose, troops, police and gaols; they could not make a fortress of their whole social system, to meet a continued influx of expiree convicts. While the whole white population of these colonies did not much exceed 400,000, and the average annual increase by birth and immigration was in round numbers 25,000, the annual influx of British criminals was about 4,000. So that for every six free emigrants we were receiving one felon. He said we, for it was perfectly obvious that in this matter there could be no distinction or immunity ; Van Dieman's Land being already saturated with criminals, and her labour market being sufficiently supplied, every fresh importation had only the effect of displacing ah equal number of those already there, and sending them to seek a living in the neighbouring colonies. Every year therefore 4000 expiree convicts, or ticket-of-leave men left Van Dieman's Land for Australia and New Zealand. In fact, Van Dieman's Land had in some respects an advantage over its neighbours, for the police establishments made necessary by the character of, its population were kept up by the mother country, whereas the neighbouring colonies received the polluting element without receiving any protection from its effects. They suffered, too, in character, as well as in positive social deterioration. Those who had been in California had often told himself that any man coming from these colonies was looked upon with the deepest suspicion and distrust; the onus probandi was upon any Australasian who asserted that he was not a felon. Such was the moral prestige with which Great Britain was surrounding the young communities on which is to devolve the task of transmitting her laws, language, and religion, unto future ages. Such was the care which she evinced for the fair fame of her children. They must not delude themselves, therefore, into the seliish belief that this was a matter which did not concern them. Every man, woman, and child in the Australian colonies had a deep personal interest in the discontinuance of transportation. The purity of their homes, the security of their lives and properties, and their national reputation, were staked upon this question. He earnestly hoped therefore that a cordial support would be given by the colonists of Canterbury to the Australasian League. [In the course of his speech Mr. Godley read the document by which the Australian Colonies bind themselves to seek the abolition of the convict system. We reprint it here, and may reniaik that it will be circulated for signature throughout the Settlement. The letter read by Mr. Godley was published in our issue of September 13.] The League and Solemn Engagement of the Australian Colonies. January, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fify One. Wheueas, in the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty, by an Order in Council, ihe Practice of Transporting Convicts to New

South Wales was abandoned by the Crown; And "Whereas, by divers promises the Government of Great Britain engaged not to send Convicts from the United Kingdom to New South Wales, New Zealand, Victoria, or King George's Sound. And Whereas by an Act of British Parliament, XransPortati°n to South Australia was positively prohibited. And Whereas Lieutenant-Governor Denison, in the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty Seven, declared to the Colonists of Van Dieman's Land Her Majesty's most gracious purpose that Transportation to that Island should be discontinued. And Whereas the Colony of Van Dieman's Land hai been deeply injured by the pouring in of enormoui masses of Transported Offenders. And Whereas divers and repeated attempts have been made to depart from the letter and spirit of these promises. And Whereas the avowed object of Her Majesty's Secretary of State is to transfuse the convicti disembarked in Van Dieman's Land through the Australian Colonies, and thus to evade the spirit of the promise and Act of Pailiament so made. And Whereas large tracts of land have been purchased by the Colonists from the Crown; many millions of capital invested in improvements; and many thousands of Her Majesty's subject! have settled in Australasia, on the pledged faith of the Crown, not to disturb their social welfare by the importation of crime. And Whereas the native Anstralasians are entitled to all the rights and privileges of British subjects, and to the sympathy and protection of the British nation. And Whereas many and varied efforts have been made to induce Her Majesty's Ministers and the British. Parliament to terminate the practice of Transportation to these Colonies, but without success. Now, therefore, the Delegates of these Colonies, in conference assembled, do declare their League and Solemn Engagement, to the Effect following:

Ist. —That they engage not to employ any persons hereafter arriving under sentence of Transportation for Crime committed in Europe. 2nd.—That they will use all the powers they possess official, electoral, and legislative, to prevent the establishment of English Prisons, or penal settlements within their bounds ; that they will refuse assent to any projects to facilitate the administration of such penal systems, and that they will seek the repeal of all regulations, and the removal of all establishments for that purpose. And lastly, they solemnly engage .with each other to support by their advice, their money, and their countenance, all who may suffer in the lawful promotion of. this' cause. Offices of the New South Wales Branch of th« Australasian League. Mr. Bbittan said he had great pleasure in rising to move the first resolution ; after th« able statement made by their Chairman, he should not enter upon the general subject, but only say that he most cordially agreed with the view of it expressed by Mr. Godley. It was clearly their interest to protest against transportation, if only to prevent the overflow of convicts into their own society, but in a higher point of view, they were bound by the common feelings of humanity to join their fellow-colonists against the system. He should, without speaking any further, read the resolution. Ist.—That the inhabitants of this Settlement are imperatively bound to co-operate in every possible way with those among their countrymen in tha neighbouring colonies who are engaged in the endeavour to preserve Australasia from the pollution of convict immigration. Mr. Wedge seconded the resolution, which was put to the meeting and carried unanimously. Mr. Tancked rose and said, —I am very happy to propose the second resolution, and although Mr. Godley stated the case so clearly as almost to preclude the necessity of any further remarks, perhaps I may be allowed to call your attention to a few extracts I have made from statistical statements referring to this subject, shewing what a loss is occasioned to the public by the presence of any large convict population. In 1849 the proportion which the free bore to the convict population, was as one to four in New South Wales, in that year IGA'3 persons passed through the Sydney gaol, of whom (>O7 only were free, and 1036 known to have been convicts. Now, had the convict class of prisoners borne the same proportion to those of the free class, as the whole convict population bove to the whole free population, that is, as one to four, the prisoners of the free class being tiO7, those of the convict class ought, to have numbered 121 instead of 1030, thus making the whole number of prisoners to be maintained (Continued in 6th page.)