NEW SOUTH WALES AND PARLIAMENT. 323 



adventurous sons of the new country. In fine, minor trading 

 ventures were to be allowed a chance of existence, and men 

 with small capital to be given land though with a sparing hand. 

 But to the wealthy land and labour were to be dispensed 

 liberally, with two chief objects in view one to encourage 

 emigrants who might relieve the Government of the charge 

 of the convicts, and the other to provide England with an 

 important raw material. 



The main recommendations of the second report have been 

 already discussed. The chief subject of judicial interest was 

 that of juries, and the decision of Bigge was for delay. The 

 Criminal Court, with some modifications, he thought might still 

 be sufficient, and he followed the counsel of Mr. Justice Field 

 in proposing a judicial establishment with one judge only for 

 both Civil and Criminal Courts. The office of Judge- Advocate, 

 however, was to be done away with and an Attorney-General 

 to take his place as Crown Prosecutor. One abuse, the part 

 payment of the salary of the chief judge by fees of his court, 

 was also to be abolished. It was an abuse to which the high 

 fees of the court had given an unpleasant prominence, and it 

 had at no time been a necessary system. 1 As to the police 

 establishment, the recommendations were of minor importance, 

 and related chiefly to the appointment from England of a 

 superintendent, and a better system of payment in the service. 



The reports also urged the separation of Van Diemen's Land 

 from New South Wales, and the establishment of a complete 

 and independent judiciary for the former. 



One further matter must not be neglected. Bigge realised 

 very fully the trouble that had been caused by Macquarie's 

 autocratic rule, and though he was perhaps severe upon the 

 Governor's many mistakes, he recognised also that they were 

 faults of the system as well as the man. He saw, as probably 

 ministers at home had already seen, that the end of military 



1 He also called attention to a subject suggested to him and also to Goulburn 

 by Judge Field the fact, namely, that 27 Geo. III., cap. 2, related only to the 

 criminal part of the Charter of Justice, so that the Civil Court of the Colony \va* 

 founded only by Royal Charter and not authorised by Parliament, " and as our 

 present Civil Charter takes away from His Majesty's subjects their constitutional 

 right of appealing to the King in Council unless the matter in dispute is above 

 3,000, . . . such Charter had better have been authorised by an Act of the 

 Legislature ". Field to Goulburn, i3th November, 1818. R.O., MS. 



