504 LABOUR MARKET, 



throng with people in want of work, with paupers 

 and with thieves. 



The great evil at present complained of by the 

 settlers of Tasmania, is the superabundance '[- of 

 labour. In most other colonies the contrary com- 

 plaint is made ; and were it not for peculiar cir- 

 cumstances, the great demand in one place would soon 

 relieve the pressure in the other. But it must be 

 remembered, that the glut in the Tasmanian labour 

 market is produced by the presence of crowds of 

 convicts, in various stages of restraint, all prevented 

 from leaving the island, and forced to remain and seek 

 employment there ; so that as soon as the demand 

 for labour falls off, or the supply of it becomes dis- 

 proportionately large, it is the free population that 

 is necessarily displaced. 



The effect, therefore, of the gradual pouring of 

 a superabundance of convict labour into this island, 

 must naturally be, first, to check free immigration ; 

 and secondly, to drive away those who have actually 

 established themselves on it as their second home, 

 and may perhaps have abandoned comfort in England 

 in hopes of affluence there. So great is the num- 

 ber actually leaving the place every year, that it is 

 calculated that in six years, at the same ratio, there 

 will be absolutely none left. 



And yet, no further back than 1841, the Legis- 

 lative Council voted £60,000 to encourage immi- 

 gration, thus needlessly taxing the colony to aid in 

 producing a disastrous result, which certainly, how- 

 ever, no one seems to have foreseen. 



