The management of the prisoners being confided to the judgment of the governor, Lord Stanley deemed the chief cause of its many changes, and its subservience to colonial prosperity. The deference of the ministers to this discretion he attributed to the unwillingness of the home office to interfere with a functionary in correspondence with the colonial office, and the reluctance of the secretary for the colonies to guide a penal system designed for interests exclusively imperial. Thus, he stated, the governor was practically independent, and had strong inducements to render the labor of convicts subservient to colonial wealth, and to disregard the great design--the prevention of crime in Great Britain. He declared that all schemes of convict management were of colonial origin, and all contemplated local interests as their main object. To prevent these devices he proposed to retain in the colonial-office the exclusive management of the details of transportation.[239] Among the items of convict expense was a charge of L164,000 for rations. This Lord Stanley considered an extravagant outlay. He deemed it highly improper that in a country where all the means of subsistence existed in such abundance with an unlimited supply of manual labor, this charge should remain. He however feared that while the convicts were permitted to labor on works of colonial utility the local authorities would always find means to increase the charges for their subsistence (Feb. 28, '43). The treasury concurred in this view, and requested that explicit instructions might be given to Wilmot and the comptroller-general to prevent the employment of labor for the colonial benefit, and to devote their utmost efforts to raise the food on the waste lands of the colony. The convict department attempted agriculture, and they selected for the experiment cold, damp, and barren soils. Gardens of a few acres occupied a thousand men: the cleared land was utterly worthless. Garden seeds were brought into the colonial market, and potatos sold at twenty shillings which cost the government L10 per ton. Several hundred men idled their time in cultivating land which did not equal in the aggregate a single farm.[240] The estimated value of all the articles produced on two stations, Deloraine and Westbury, in 1846, by four hundred men, was less than L2 per man; while the salaries of their officers were nearly double that sum.[241] Mr. Montagu, the late colonial secretary, in estimating the cost of the convict department, presented a calculation L100,000 annually less than the estimate of the officers on the spot. This difference Lord Stanley set up as proof of the culpable negligence and profligacy of colonial expense. He considered the body of persons employed in the control of prisoners excessive. A reduction was therefore enforced, and in the end less surveillance was employed than free labor usually requires.