It comes out in evidence, that the Western Australians can employ a certain amount of convict labour, but cannot employ much more than they now have, at the present rate of annual supply. Many employers prefer convicts, as more tractable than free labourers, and they are decidedly pleased at the exclusion Acts of the free colonies. Mr. Burgess and other witnesses declare that crime has not increased in proportion to the number of convicts, a considerable proportion of the men having behaved well; but they draw marked distinctions between a bad order of convicts and a better order, strongly hinting that a careful selection should be made; and I am disposed to believe that these hints will not be lost upon the head office in Parliament Street. Several of the colonists had desired the introduction of convicts, because they looked forward to the official expenditure on account of the establishment, &c.; and these speculators have been disappointed. They were particularly annoyed because provisions for convicts were furnished from other colonies, whereas they claimed a protective system of trade, as the correlative of the convict burden. Amongst eastern colonists are many who formerly approved of transportation, but they found “the character of the convicts grow worse as the criminal laws of England were ameliorated and softened.” A very curious lesson is brought out incidentally. “Formerly,” says Mr. Hewitt, of Tasmania—the last colony in which convictism was abolished, much to the chagrin of Governor Denison and the authorities in England—“we got men sent to us for political offences, for poaching, machine-breaking, and so on; and there was always a very large body of convicts who prided themselves that they were not thieves and rogues; but since the alteration of the laws in this country, it seems to me that every man who comes out has committed some grave offence.”