Page:Transportation and colonization.djvu/253

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AND COLONIZATION.
239

punishments; and in consequence of this want of information, or rather of the abundance of information calculated to mislead, they have in great measure been drawing a bow at a venture, in transmitting orders or regulations for the guidance of the successive governors of New South Wales.[1]

  1. In the evidence of Mr. James Busby, the present British resident at New Zealand, before the parliamentary committee on secondary punishments, in the year 1831, the following passage occurs: viz.

    "1335. What measures are taken as to the education of children born in the colony? Very ample provision is made for that; there are schools in almost every district; wherever there are a few families together, they endeavour to provide a schoolmaster of some sort or other.

    "1336. At their own expense? Not altogether; partly by the government, partly by themselves. The ecclesiastical establishment is charged with that; and, in fact, it has been by the exertions of the late and present archdeacons that so many schools have been established, rather than by any desire on the part of the inhabitants of distant places, who are often very indifferent upon the subject.

    "1337. Is it an easy thing for labourers to go to a place of worship on Sunday? There are a number of clergymen in the colony, and they perform service in various places; it is generally understood that persons who have convicts in their service ought to cause their attendance, if they are within three or four miles of the place where service is performed; in all these matters there is a want of efficiency in enforcing the