VIII 



PREFACE 



in dealing with both they reproduced with many interesting 

 modifications the administrative methods to which they had 

 been accustomed. Thus, for example, the magistrates had to 

 deal with the evils of the liquor trade in a peculiarly acute form, 

 and ways had also to be found for carrying out the easier duties 

 of public benevolence. For the latter purpose many associa- 

 tions came into being, and it was largely through the sense of 

 corporate existence gained by these means that the colonists 

 began to demand towards the end of the period a fuller share 

 in the work of Government. During these years also the ques- 

 tions of taxation, the organisation of trade, internal and external, 

 the distribution of and above all the conditions of labour passed 

 through important stages. Finally there was ever present the 

 unsolved problem of the reform or restraint of the criminal. 

 New South Wales at this period ceased to be a mere penal 

 station and became a Colony. Although the convicts still formed 

 the majority of the population, the free settlers and the convicts' 

 children gained steadily upon them in numbers, wealth and in- 

 fluence. Macquarie deliberately adopted the principle that New 

 South Wales was for the convict and not for the free colonist, 

 and the story of his government is largely the story of the 

 momentary success and final defeat of this policy, a defeat 

 followed by some years of bitter class enmity. 



Yet the idea which fired Macquarie's enthusiasm was worthy 

 of attention, and to turn the criminal into a useful, self-respecting 

 citizen populating the empty lands of a new country, and alone 

 building up a new state, was a fine and generous plan. 



The introduction of free settlers privileged to employ convict 

 labour, the faults and weakness of an autocratic government, 

 and above all the mental atmosphere of the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century with its narrow religious outlook and severe 

 class rigidity, made its complete realisation impossible. Never- 

 theless the experiment of colonising-transportation was not 

 altogether a failure. If for the most part the convict remained 



