But it never came to this. No antagonism in this instance ever arose between the colonial and imperial governments, for Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues just then went out of power, and the project of the new colony in North Australia was given up by the new ministry which had to deal with the question in two phases: first, the evils actually in existence from the over-crowding of Van Diemen's Land must be mitigated, if they could not be removed; and secondly, some plan must be adopted to obviate their recurrence in the future. The first point was touched by suspending transportation altogether for two years. The stream thus checked, would have to be directed elsewhere; but in the meantime, Van Diemen's Land would be relieved: in the course of two years the probation-gangs would be emptied, and the great labour pressure caused by the crowds of pass-holders would have disappeared. To deal still further with the actual difficulty, new and able men were appointed as administrators: Sir William Denison was to go out as governor, and Mr. Hampton comptroller-general of convicts. So much for the first point. The second embraced a wider field. The government was bound, not only to provide for the thousands with which it had saddled itself by the cessation of transportation to Van Diemen's Land for a couple of years, but it had to look further ahead and legislate for future years. It was now decided that transportation, as it had hitherto been understood and carried out, should come to an end. Although two years had been the limit of its temporary suspension, any expectation of recurring to the old system at the end of that period was "altogether illusory." The new system, stated briefly, was to consist of a limited period of separate imprisonment at home, succeeded by employment on public works, either abroad at Bermuda or Gibraltar, or in this country; and ultimately followed in ordinary cases by exile or banishment for the remaining term of the original sentence. The following was now to be the ordering of the lives of convicts: A term of separate confinement, continuing from six to eighteen months, according to sentence and the manner in which prisoners bore the punishment; forced labour at home penal establishments, or at Gibraltar or Bermuda, this term to depend also on sentence, but the time by arrangement of tasks to be shortened by industry; and finally tickets-of-leave in the colonies.