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 CHAPTER XI.

discontinuance of the assignment system in the Australian penal colonies necessarily presupposes a facility of obtaining free labour in that colony to whatever extent it may be required in future, by all the three classes of colonists above enumerated. It would obviously be preposterous for any person at all interested in the welfare and advancement of the colony to recommend the discontinuance of the assignment of convict labour to colonial proprietors, if no other species of labour of a more eligible character were procurable. This was undoubtedly the state of things in New South Wales five or six years ago. At that time free labour