MR LATROBE AS SUPERINTENDENT 249 



were Irish immigrants, and they remained on hand because they 

 were Irish, and for that reason alone ". He added that the Immi- 

 gration Agent had stated that they were unserviceable, but did not 

 state how or why, and in his opinion the strong anti-Irish feeling 

 alone prevented them from being engaged. There was a sharp 

 debate on the subject, but the Governor strongly deprecated any 

 distinction being made between English and Irish immigrants, and 

 said : " The question should be, was a man a good shepherd, or 

 a good labourer, and if he was, it mattered not whether he was 

 English or Irish, Roman Catholic or Protestant ". The Governor's 

 emphatic common-sense did not kill the prejudice, for three years 

 later, before a Select Committee of the Legislative Council on 

 Immigration in 1843, Dr. Thomson of Geelong, one of the members 

 for Port Phillip, gave evidence that " many immigrants brought 

 to Port Phillip are utterly useless; in point of intellect they are 

 inferior to our own aborigines ". In reply to a question as to where 

 they came from, he replied, from the south of Ireland ! 



In proof of the fact that one section of the community made 

 this a standing grievance for many years, it is only necessary to 

 examine the annual reports of the Colonial Land and Emigration 

 Commissioners. These disclose the fact that continual remonstrances 

 went forward from the Colonies as to the inferior and badly educated 

 class being sent out. So recently as in their report of 21st January, 

 1856, they reply in desperation that without drawing largely on 

 Ireland they could not possibly have answered the demands made 

 upon them, and they see no way to avoid doing so in future. This 

 led to the Victorian Government, which had then got its Constitution, 

 intimating that the services of the Commissioners would thenceforth 

 be dispensed with, and a paid agent of the colony substituted. 



To revert, however, to 1839-40. The steady influx of European 

 immigrants, wherever they came from, was an invaluable aid to 

 development, and during those two years fully 2,500 persons were 

 added to the population from this source, irrespective of those who 

 paid their own passages in full, and others who arrived from the 

 Sydney side and from Tasmania. 



The great influx of immigrants, however, was in 1841, for during 

 that year no less than forty-four ships landed over 8,000 passengers 



