LAND, LABOUR AND COMMERCE. 141 



" If a large body of respectable persons could be induced to 

 settle in the Colony," he wrote, " much good might be accom- 

 plished. Provided the new settlers were of a description to 

 compel their servants to execute a due quantity of work to de- 

 termine the amount of their rewards, and to make the quality 

 and to some extent the quantity of their food depend upon the 

 convicts' industry and good behaviour. ... I am sensible that 

 such an authority as I have described would sometimes be mis- 

 used by harsh and selfish men . . . and that such abuses of 

 power might escape detection. But that portion of evil, or, I 

 fear, a greater one, must be submitted to ; for experience has 

 proved . . . the pernicious and demoralising operation of 

 general regulations which place the good and bad servant, the 

 honest man and the thief, upon the same footing, and authorising 

 him not only to claim but to insist upon the same indulgence." 

 He summarised his views by saying that a convict should be com- 

 pelled to work for his living and to refrain from vicious practices, 

 but that he should be duly rewarded for good work and good 

 conduct. 



Thomas Moore, an experienced settler and magistrate, made 

 a proposal of a novel kind to which unfortunately no attention 

 was paid. 



" All persons," he suggested, " receiving convicts into their 

 employ should take the entire management and superintendence 

 of them themselves, and in every agricultural district I would re- 

 commend a village or small town to be established in the most 

 central part of it, where there should be fixed such Government 

 mechanics as may be necessary for the benefit of that particular 

 district. In each of these towns a magistrate should preside, 

 and three respectable settlers should be appointed to act as 

 appraisers, who, with the magistrate, should be empowered to 

 fix the quantity and price of every kind of agricultural labour 

 that may be performed by convicts within that district." : 



No one approved of the method of payment. Some con- 

 sidered it inconsistent with a state of servitude that convicts 



1 This is, perhaps, too simple and patriarchal but it would have been a good 

 idea to form such small settlements of Government men all over the country. 

 Fixed regulations were a virtual necessity for convict labour unless Macarthur's 

 view was to be adopted. 



