306 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



make England scarcely worth living in. . . . One of the 

 principal reasons for peopling Botany Bay at all, was, that it 

 would be an admirable receptacle and a school of reform for 

 our convicts. It turns out that for the first half century it will 

 make them worse than they were before. . . ." l 



Bennet was active in Parliament as well as without. On 

 the 1 8th February, 1819, he moved the appointment of another 

 Committee to inquire into the effects of Transportation to New 

 South Wales. His speech was the most comprehensive and im- 

 portant which had as yet been delivered in England upon the 

 affairs of the Colony, and showed both in its weakness and its 

 strength the difficulties under which any unofficial inquirer 

 then laboured in gaining a knowledge of so remote a country. 2 



Having dealt first with the condition of the hulks and the 

 effects of imprisonment upon them (matters which he under- 

 stood from personal observation) and the mode of transporting 

 the convicts to New South Wales, he turned to a description of 

 the colonial Government. 



" The Governor of this Colony," he said, " assumed to settle 

 the price of all labour and also of all provisions ; and the orders 

 upon this subject were issued by the Governor himself without 

 referring to the opinion of any council ; an extraordinary stretch 

 of power. ..." 



He proceeded : " the Governor had the power of opening and 

 shutting the public stores and the ports of the island 3 at his 

 own pleasure ". The consequences of this and, of the sudden re- 

 duction in the price of meat he described much as Riley de- 

 scribed them later in his Evidence before the Committee on 

 Gaols. 



Turning to the Colonial Judiciary he said, " The Committee 

 of 1812 had recommended the introduction of trial by jury into 

 this Colony. . . . He would not say at present that juries ought 

 to be introduced into New South Wales ; but he thought it 

 most inexpedient that the question should be determined in 

 consequence of any sort of communication made at the office 

 of the Secretary of State. He wished to hear the opinion of 



1 Edinburgh Review, July, 1819, vol. xxxii., pp. 23-47. 



8 See Hansard, vol. xxxix., pp. 464-478, i8th February, 1819. 



8 ' Island " is a very remarkable description of New South Wales. 





