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36
information on this question, and that he should direct any correspondence
on the matter through the Lieutenant-Governor to the Secretary of State
for the Colonies.
Franklin was fully aware that these arrangements had
been made.
In due course
Hobart Town in June 1837.
the Molesworth Committee 's despatch reached
Franklin submitted it to a Board comprising
the Chief Police agistrate M. Forster, the Director-General of Roads
A. Cheyne, and the Principal Superintendent of Convicts. Opinion was
fairly evenly divided between those like Maconochie and Cheyne who advocated
the abolition of assignment , and those like Mont.agu and Forster who favoured
its retention;
Franklin, who was placed in a difficult situation, was
inclined to consider a compromi se .
However, at a meeti_ng of the Executive­
Council on August 28, 1837 , Maconochie 's proposals for a new system were
condemned.
On October 7, 1837 , Frank lin sent his reply to London, enclosing
his own report on convict discipline, the answers to the Molesworth
Committee's questions, and the observations of members of the Board.
Maconochie1s request, he also enclosed his Report on the State of Prison
Discipline in Van Diemen's Land, 30th September , 1837 . 3
did not read it, he was aware that it condemned assignment .
At
Although Franklin
It was this
report, much to the author 's surprise, which ignited a spark both in Britain
and in Van Diemen 's Land, and set the wheels of chnge in motion.
was uncertain;
In his report
Maconochie indicated that the degree of punishment
sometimes fearful in the case of a bad master, sometimes far
too lenient in the case of a good or weak one;
in the majority the degree
of moral suffering was far in excess of the offence committed , the greater
sufferi_ng being endured by those who least deserved it .
The impact on
social life was disastrous, the degradation of one class affecting all
others ;
The disuse of moral influence in domestic life gives a harsh ,
peremptory, and overbearing character to the whole intercourse of
society. Every differe n ce of opinion makes a quarre l, and every
decision, whether of the government or courts of judicature,
constitutes a ground of vehement complaint or political invective .
The severe regulations of the prison discipline also foster these
feelings. They are so strict that they are not and cannot be
universally put in force, yet every now and then even the most
minute of these is acted on to the loss and inconvenience of
individual families by interfering with their domestic servants
and this is constantly thought t o be caused by personal feeling
rather than by right or p r inciple. The disunion of society in
the penal colonies is thus complete, and manifests itself in a
depth of suspicion and recklessness of assertion beyond all
3
GO 25/7 p. 182 & GO 33/60 p. 287 .