In Sydney the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Benevolence had given relief from funds raised by private subscriptions, and the Government did not allow any one to perish by actual starvation. But in 1817 Macquarie thought that some scheme should be organised for relieving the poor, and called a meeting of magistrates[1] and other principal inhabitants, at which Wylde, who had, however, not been consulted as to the objects of the meeting, presided.[2]
He proposed that a duty on tea and tobacco and an increased duty on spirits should be levied, and the proceeds devoted to the relief of the poor, thus leaving the fund to be raised and administered by the Government, and treating it as a national (if the word can be used for the Colony) service belonging not to each locality but to the Central Government.[3]
Macquarie had expected the meeting to make arrangements for raising a private fund, and though he laid the extra duty on spirits and the new duty on tobacco, he did not utilise the proceeds as the meeting had suggested. His idea was that the people of each district should "support their own free, poor and decayed settlers".[4]
The meeting on the other hand thought that "all expenses in regard to ticket-of-leave men and emancipated convicts should be borne by the Crown, especially in those cases where persons very far advanced in age were sent out under sentence of transportation, and also in the cases of prisoners who had been many years retained as mechanics by the Government".[5]
Something of a compromise was finally reached by the establishment of the Benevolent Society first mooted in April, and founded at a public meeting on the 6th June, 1818. The chief rules were that persons applying for relief must be recommended by a subscriber, and that relief was so far as possible to be given in kind and not in money. The objects of relief were
- ↑ S.G., 5th July, 1817. Notice does not say for what purpose the meeting is called.
- ↑ Meeting took place on 13th August, 1817.
- ↑ The taxes suggested were 6d. a lb. on tobacco, 1s. or 2s. a lb. on tea, and another 3s. on spirits. See Wylde's Evidence, Appendix, Bigge's Reports. R.O., MS.
- ↑ Macquarie, D. 20, 24th March, 1819. R.O., MS. In "free" he certainly included emancipists and possibly ticket-of-leave men.
- ↑ Wylde, see above.
