THE PASTORALIST AND THE CONVICT 109 



squatters. One of the many reproaches that were 

 flung in the teeth of Wentworth during his last con- 

 tested elections Avas that he belonged to a class which 

 had favoured the importation of coolies. ' Coolies/ 

 or kanakas, have since then been imported in thousands 

 into Australia, though for another class of labour than 

 the pastoral ; yet that very importation of slave labour 

 reveals the true character of the coolie labour proposed 

 to be imported and of the convict labour already 

 utilised. All alike were forms of slavery. 



The squatters fought hard for the continuance of 

 transportation, but it was a new kind of transportation 

 they contended for. It was denominated exihsm, 

 because it was the transportation of con\acts who 

 were to be free to act as assigned servants to the squat- 

 ters, and who were known as " free exiles." The 

 " exile " had passed through a term of probation in an 

 English convict prison, and was to be permitted to 

 live in rural districts for not less than a year. Sent 

 out to New South Wales and Victoria, such individuals, 

 it was expected, would be absorbed by the labour 

 market. They were " sent out with conditional par- 

 dons. When hired, they were under no direct control 

 as convicts." * 



This was the expansion of the penal system designed 

 by Earl Grey in 1848. He did not invent it. Four 

 years earlier a public meeting held in Melbourne, 

 clamouring for labourers and yet dreading the influx 

 of expiree convicts from Van Diemen's Land, favoured 

 the receiving of exiles. In that very year of 1844 an 

 initiative in the same direction was taken in England. 

 In 1844 Lord Stanley suggested that the Governors of 

 these colonies should devise measures " to provide for 

 the reception and employment of exiles from " England. 

 This was possibly the first use of the term, at least in 

 England, though we may suspect that it was in Aus- 

 traha that this softening of a harsh designation origin- 

 ated. As an experiment, 345 such exiles were sent out 

 * RusDEN, History of Australia, ii. 466 (sec. ed.). 



