Page:A colonial autocracy, New South Wales under Governor Macquarie, 1810-1821.djvu/121

 there is too much reason to apprehend the consequences which may result from the reduced price of an article, the injurious effect of which upon the morals and health of the inhabitants is only equalled by the avidity with which it is required." He concluded by asking the Governor to express an opinion on the subject, a somewhat farcical request, since it was upon the Governor's opinion that the Committee had founded their proposal which he was thus invited to criticise.

Macquarie reiterated his previous arguments, but it was not until 1819 that the Colonial Office gave way. Even then they had misgivings. Commissioner Bigge, who went to New South Wales in that year, was instructed to inquire whether "distillation in the Colony could be so checked and controlled as to prevent the indiscriminate and unrestrained dissemination of ardent spirits throughout a population too much inclined already to immoderate use of them, and too likely to be excited by the use of them to acts of lawless violence."

There was no doubt in Bigge's mind as to the economic advantages to be expected from permission to distil, and in 1822 distilleries were established under very stringent regulations.

The hospital contract expired on the 31st December, 1814, and the building was completed shortly afterwards. Macquarie always held that the contract had been very advantageous to the Government, who had gained much and lost nothing by its means. The contractors had paid duty on the spirits they imported, and laying stress on this, and on the fact that there was now a hospital of an imposing description to beautify the town of Sydney, Macquarie neglected all other sides to the matter. He overlooked, for example, the fact that the hospital was much larger than was necessary, so much larger indeed that for some years half of it was set aside and used as a court-house. Its architecture, too, was of so ornate a description and so far beyond the skill of the workmen that the building was already falling into decay in 1820. However, the rum hospital, erected "by such a sacrifice of public morals and expediency," still forms part of the Parliament House of New South Wales at the present day.