In 1836 Mr. Spring Rice (now Lord Monteagle) took advantage of a considerable local land fund to throw on the council the police establishment of the colony, occasioned by transportation. The sum then required (L14,000) was comparatively unimportant, and it was urged that the labor of convicts employed on public works at the cost of Great Britain, except L4,000 for superintendence, was a sufficient compensation. But the charge for constabulary and prisons gradually increased to L36,000. The land fund, after deducting L97,000, expended for emigration, for the support of aborigines, and the working of the land office, yielded in ten years a surplus of L207,000, carried to the general revenue; but during this time the charge for police and gaols exceeded L311,000. The increase of judicial expenses, and especially of witnesses, was proportionately great; and this last item in one year (1846), although most lighter crimes were disposed of in a summary way, rose to L6,000. The execution of public works by the crown had been the sole vindication of these charges. From this arrangement Lord Stanley departed, and in peremptory terms prohibited a spade to be moved but on payment from the colonial treasury. Thus at a season of commercial stagnation the benefit of convict labor was withdrawn, while the charges for police and gaols rose to one-third of the entire revenue of the colony, and in two years and a-half a debt accumulated to L100,000. Notwithstanding the obvious injustice of this burden, the treatment of the New South Wales legislature gave slight hope of redress. Lord Stanley directed Sir George Gipps to obviate the threatened resistance of that council by hastening pardons to the prisoners, by withdrawing them from the service of the settlers, and by sending those not otherwise disposable to Van Diemen's Land. He was forbidden to relieve extreme financial difficulties by drafts on England, or draw from the military chest, although at the period an immense body of convicts remained long after transportation had ceased. This disregard of a more powerful colony led the people of Van Diemen's Land to infer that from a minister so unscrupulous no justice could be expected while evasion was possible. Wilmot was deeply embarrassed, but he determined to adhere to the instructions of the secretary of state, whose distance prevented his perceiving the hopelessness of his project until that discovery was unavailing. The positive nature of these injunctions left no room for discretion. The governor was commanded not to adopt any detailed regulations at variance with the scheme prescribed by the crown, or to depart from its provisions without express authority.[234]