MR. LATROBE AS SUPERINTENDENT 271 



Governor of New South Wales, he is emphatic and explicit on the 

 mutual advantages to the labourer and to those who want his 

 services ; nor does he overlook the philanthropic aspect of the 

 question. 



" The best and only hope of restoring convicts to society," 

 he says, " as virtuous, industrious and useful members of it, 

 consists in their being removed as exiles and freemen, after 

 having undergone a penal imprisonment and servitude in the 

 United Kingdom." 



The arrival of the Royal George in November, 1844, with the 

 first batch of these free exiles, created considerable disturbance, and 

 made it very plain that the interests of the pastoralists, as the chief 

 employers of labour, were entirely at variance with the mass of the 

 dwellers in the town. As usual, the working man found a section 

 of the local press ready to champion his personal view of the 

 matter, and to denounce the Government so violently as to inflame 

 the labour market to the verge of revolt at the prophesied reduction 

 of wages. Meetings were held at which much vigorous oratory 

 was expended, both for and against. The conservative element, 

 representing the employers, carried resolutions that, as a means of 

 checking the introduction of expiree convicts from Van Diemen's 

 Land, it would be beneficial to Port Phillip to receive the exiles. 

 The labour meetings carried resolutions condemning the Govern- 

 ment in good round terms for the injury which it was inflicting on 

 the class whose chief interest centred in the rate of wages. How- 

 ever, no definite action followed, and the agitation flickered out in a 

 few weeks, to be revived some years later. The testimony borne 

 to the character of the bulk of the exiles by some of the pioneer 

 colonists who returned in the Royal George from a visit to Eng- 

 land, together with the fact that they were all engaged within three 

 days at a high rate of wages, without by any means filling the 

 demand, had a quieting effect, and even the local papers allowed 

 the matter to drop. 



The cessation of immigration, which had followed on the col- 

 lapse of the land sales, had greatly intensified the demand for 

 labour. The exiles were speedily assimilated, and the cry went up 

 for more. For the only alternative source of supply was a very 



