308 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



was no power but Parliament which could legally raise money 

 within it. 



" Were we to plant a Colony on the other side of the globe 

 and to take no care as to the manner in which it was . . . ad- 

 ministered ? He had no hesitation in saying, that if the settle- 

 ment were well governed and its resources wisely drawn forth, 

 it might be made, instead of a seat of immorality and a nursery 

 of vice, a source of great profit to the country." 



Wilberforce, who supported the motion, dealt rather hardly 

 with the faults of Macquarie's government and the failure to 

 reform the convicts. 



Goulburn opposed the motion on reasonable grounds. " If, 

 . . . the report of 1812 was meagre," he asked, "why was it so? 

 It was because the committee had to investigate at a distance 

 of thousands of miles from the subject of their investigation. 

 . . . In 1812 they could only procure information to 1810, and 

 in 1819 the proposed committee could only gain a knowledge 

 of the transactions of 1817. ..." 



Lord Castlereagh pointed out that there was no need of a 

 Committee, for " before the honourable gentleman gave notice 

 of the present motion, his noble friend at the head of the colonial 

 department had instituted a Commission and had obtained the 

 consent of an individual ... to go out to the Colony and 

 make a detailed inquiry on the spot, for the purpose of ascer- 

 taining whether the Colony could be made more auxiliary (sic) 

 to the administration of justice in this country, and how far its 

 moral and religious improvements might be promoted." The 

 motion was lost. 2 



Then suddenly the Government made a volte face ap- 

 parently without further solicitation. On the 1st March, twelve 

 days after Bennet's motion, Lord Castlereagh proposed the 

 appointment of a Committee to inquire into Gaols, Prisons and 

 Transportation. He made clear what were the Government's 

 feelings towards New South Wales. 3 



" It would," he said, "be necessary to inquire if Botany Bay, 

 as it had lately and as it still existed, had not a character more 



1 Communications had so much improved that information of as late a date 

 as half-way through 1818 might have been received. 



2 See Hansard, vol. xxxix., i8th February, 1819. 



3 ist March, 1819, p. 742. 



