adventurous sons of the new country. In fine, minor trading ventures were to be allowed a chance of existence, and men with small capital to be given land though with a sparing hand. But to the wealthy land and labour were to be dispensed liberally, with two chief objects in view—one to encourage emigrants who might relieve the Government of the charge of the convicts, and the other to provide England with an important raw material.
The main recommendations of the second report have been already discussed. The chief subject of judicial interest was that of juries, and the decision of Bigge was for delay. The Criminal Court, with some modifications, he thought might still be sufficient, and he followed the counsel of Mr. Justice Field in proposing a judicial establishment with one judge only for both Civil and Criminal Courts. The office of Judge-Advocate, however, was to be done away with and an Attorney-General to take his place as Crown Prosecutor. One abuse, the part payment of the salary of the chief judge by fees of his court, was also to be abolished. It was an abuse to which the high fees of the court had given an unpleasant prominence, and it had at no time been a necessary system.[1] As to the police establishment, the recommendations were of minor importance, and related chiefly to the appointment from England of a superintendent, and a better system of payment in the service.
The reports also urged the separation of Van Diemen's Land from New South Wales, and the establishment of a complete and independent judiciary for the former.
One further matter must not be neglected. Bigge realised very fully the trouble that had been caused by Macquarie's autocratic rule, and though he was perhaps severe upon the Governor's many mistakes, he recognised also that they were faults of the system as well as the man. He saw, as probably ministers at home had already seen, that the end of military
- ↑ He also called attention to a subject suggested to him and also to Goulburn by Judge Field—the fact, namely, that 27 Geo. III., cap. 2, related only to the criminal part of the Charter of Justice, so that the Civil Court of the Colony was founded only by Royal Charter and not authorised by Parliament, "and as our present Civil Charter takes away from His Majesty's subjects their constitutional right of appealing to the King in Council unless the matter in dispute is above £3,000, … such Charter had better have been authorised by an Act of the Legislature". Field to Goulburn, 13th November, 1818. R.O., MS.
