Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/518

494 of Van Dieman's Land forgotten, as it has so many unpleasant associations. But however glad we are that we ceased to be a convict colony, there is no getting over the fact that the most prosperous days of the island were when transportation was in existence.'

"Doctor Bronson asked him to explain this, which he did.

"'The prosperity,' he continued, 'was due to several causes. In the first place, the Government sent its convicts here, and it maintained a large military and police force to take care of them. This meant an expenditure of money; the annual outlay of the Government in Tasmania was £350,000, and of course we lost this when transportation stopped. Then, too, the free colonists that came out here received grants of land, and also assignments of convicts to work the land, the size of the grants being proportioned to the number of convicts that a colonist would receive.

"'It was a good thing for the squatter, and he was not slow to take advantage of it. It was like negro slavery, with the addition that the slaves cost nothing to the owner. If a man died, the squatter could get another for nothing; if a man ran away, he was generally recaptured at once if he did not starve in the bush; and if he misbehaved himself in any way, the squatter sent him to the nearest magistrate to be flogged.'

"'Were the squatters not allowed to administer punishment?" queried Doctor Bronson.

"'No, they were not,' was the reply; 'but the magistrate usually applied the lash without taking the trouble to inquire into the case. It