Page:The Statistics of Crime in Australia (IA jstor-2338612).pdf/10

 half, unaccounted for. In other words the latter had, almost without exception, left for "t' other side," as the common phrase is, and the local authorities had willingly let them go. It was estimated that for every five convicts who were arriving from Britain, three were re-emigrating for the eastern settlements. Indeed the colony possessed no resources to give these persons employment; and so evidently did this appear, that, as stated by the writer I have quoted, if the other colonies could hut arrest this constantly relieving efflux of the convicts, the results to West Australia would become so insufferable as to cause a speedy end of the system.

The system began in the year 1850; and up to the 31st May of the present year, there had arrived in the colony 7,781 convicts. The imperial local expenditure on their account is at present about 98,000l. yearly; but besides this benefit, the colony had stipulated for an immigration of free colonists, at imperial cost, in numbers equal to the convicts. This last arrangement, which has been carried out, and has doubtless mitigated the evils of the system to the colony, permitted of prisoners' families being sent out to them, besides pensioners and other persons. A number of free females were also included, to assist in equalizing the sexes in the absence of female convicts, none of whom, happily for the colony, were ever transported there.

The colony, if it did not thrive socially and morally, took at once a new life of another kind. Up to 1850, after twenty-one years' existence, there were but 5,886 colonists over its wide expanse, with the most insignificant finances and commerce, the public revenue having been but 12,440l., the imports 62,351l., and the exports 22,135l. But in 1863 the population had increased to 18,700, while the revenue was between four and five times larger, the imports nearly doubled, and the exports quintupled. Many colonists, especially traders in the towns, had realized small fortunes, such as they could not have even dreamed of amid the virtuous poverty of the earlier times.

But returning to the other side of the picture, we shall find it very dispassionately set forth by the authority I quote from. One of the greatest evils of such a colony early appeared, namely, that the criminal class exceeded in numbers the class of the free. Five years ago, in 1859, the whole adult males of the colony were computed thus:—

and thus excess must since have been greatly increased, as the free labouring class, as well as other free colonists, have been gradually