ere the topics of
colonial complaint will deplore the strange fidelity to his political
chief which induced him to conceal his own sentiments from the
colonists. He stated that the territory was inundated with unemployed
prisoners; that no labor being in demand, they must either starve or
steal; that a yearly increasing pauper population, without adding one
atom to colonial wealth, would swell the catalogue of crime and increase
the public expense in every form; that the number out of employment was
fearfully great; and that land--cleared, fenced, in complete
cultivation, with houses and buildings--might be bought at the upset
price of waste land. To remedy these evils he proposed the extension of
conditional pardons to the Australian colonies, the remission of the
price of crown lands to emigrants, and the letting of allotments at a
nominal rental for seven years to conditionally pardoned men, with a
contingent right of purchase.[242]

To all these remonstrances, so far as they affected the colonist, Lord
Stanley had a ready reply. The colony was originally penal, and could
claim neither compensation nor relief. He considered that in emigrating
the colonists surrendered at discretion; that they were not entitled to
object to the trebling of their police burdens and to the importation of
all instead of a small part of the convicts of the empire, as was the
case up to 1840. His rejoinder was felt with that bitterness which none
can realise who have not known the tyranny of irresistible despotism.
Happily for mankind there is no power above the steady and determined
operations of truth and right. The cruel desertion of the people in the
hour of their distress--the scornful defiance of their complaints, has
involved the cabinet of England in difficulties for which nothing but
great sacrifices will fully obviate. No people in this hemisphere will
entirely trust a British minister until the history of Van Diemen's Land
is forgotten.

The anticipated relief not having arrived, the governor again assembled
the council on the 21st of October. He now proposed several expedients
to meet the exigencies of the moment. He had, unauthorised by the
council, borrowed money of a bank. He proposed to stop the forage
allowance of the clergy, and to retain 12-1/2 per cent. of the salaries
of the officials. Both these measures were withstood--the last
effectively. The chief justice denied the power of the council to
interfere with his inc