TRANSPORTATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 80, 17 July 1852, Page 5

TRANSPORTATION.

Australasian League.—(From the Melbourne Morning Herald, May 20.) —At a meeting of this body, Mr.Westgarth stated to the Council the principal results of the Conference of Delegates that had taken place at Hobart Town. " The delegates were everywhere cordially received, and thanked for their sympathy towards Van Diemen's Land. The present circumstances of that colony rendered perfectly futile any attempts at public demonstrations to hinder the landing of convicts that continue arriving in the accustomed proportion. Owing to the convict labour system, by which prisoners were allowed to be hived out at £9 to £12 wages,

free labourers were deserting the colony, attracted both by the higher rates in other colonies and by the gold fields of Victoria. Employers are therefore, in many instances, unable to procure any other than prison labour. The large force of military and police, the large expenditure of the Government, and the official relations that spread like a close net work over the whole colony, maintained a phalanx of couvictisra which could not be overturned by any strength of opinion in the body of the colonial public. Besides this, the free operative classes who are the heart and strength in such public movements, have mostly either left or are leaving the colony. The battle of Transportation, therefore, the Colonists admit, cannot b.e fought in Van Diemen's Land alone, but must be decided by aid of the other colonies. These Colonists, however, have done their part, and as much perhaps as they, for the present, could do, by returning as their representatives anti-transportationist legislators in every instance. The battle will commence in the Tasmanian legislature during the approaching session. Of this great social question of convictism, the whole of the Government, by its representatives, is pitted against the whole of the people by theirsj and the crisis will come in the vote of the supplies. The various delegates expressed themselves as warranted in stating, on the part .of the respective Australian colonies, that they are now resolved that, at whatever consequence, transportation to these colonies must cease."

The following is an extract from a letter dated January 30, 1852, addressed by Robert Lowe, Esq., late member for Sydney, to the Honorary Secretary of the League:—" You may rely upon every step being taken in the next session which can forward the objects you have in view ; my own belief is, that it is easier to drive Lord Grey from office, than to prevail upon him to treat you with justice, and I have acted on that conviction*. The convict question so forcibly enlists the selfishness of the gentry against you, that it is by no means his vulnerable point. Achilles' heel is just now the Kafir war, in which, though not the twentieth part as much to blame as in the convict question, Lord Grey will very likely make shipwreck. To my old" friends and coadjutors in New South Wales, I would say that they must not for a moment remit their efforts, for it is there and not here that the battle must be fought. 2 may add my own conviction, gathered from my experience since I came home, that so from supplying you ivith labour, every convict keeps away twenty non-convicted emigrants."