Evidence Type: Newspaper Report
4 November 1843
MESSAGE FROM THE GOVERNOR—CONVICTS IN COLONIAL GAOLS.
His Excellency’s Private Secretary handed to the Speaker, the following Message from the Governor:—
Message from His Excellency the Governor to the Legislative Council, replying to an Address from the Council, dated the 27th October, and presented to His Excellency on the 1st instant.
Gentlemen,—By your Address of the 27th ultimo I am informed, that the Council has adopted a Resolution, to the effect, “That in the opinion of this Council, the 47th clause of the Act of the Imperial Parliament, 5th and 6th Victoriae Reginae, cap. 76, distinctly exempts the Colonial Revenue from all expenses of Police connected with the Convict Establishment, and impliedly sanctions their payment from the Military Chest; and this Council therefore adheres to the Resolution passed on the 11th instant, in reference to the support of Convicts confined in the Gaols in this Colony.”
A question is raised by this Resolution, the solution of which appears to me to depend upon the proper meaning of the words enclosed in a parenthesis, near the commencement of the 47th clause of the Act for the Government of this Colony, 5th and 6th Victoriae cap. 76; those words being—”exclusive of the Convict Establishment.”
The Convict Establishment of New South Wales, in the most comprehensive sense of the expression, includes all the separate Establishments which are supported out of funds voted from year to year by Parliament, such as those at Norfolk Island, Cockatoo Island, and Hyde Park Barracks; also, the Female Factory, the Convict Hospitals, the Teadmill [sic], the Ironed Gangs, and some few others of minor importance; but Her Majesty’s Government has for several years past refused to recognise the Gaols or Police of the Colony as part of the Convict Establishment, the expense of which ought to be defrayed out of Parliamentary funds; and I am forced to add, that had the intention of the 47th clause of the recent Act of Parliament been such as it is taken to be by the Council, I cannot doubt that I should have had some instructions from Her Majesty’s Government, in respect to the important changes which it would effect in the financial arrangements of the colony, and of the Military Chest.
No such instructions, however, have been received by me, and I have, consequently, no authority whatever to make any payment out of the Military Chest, on account of the Police or Gaols of the colony.
GEORGE GIPPS.
Government House, Nov. 2, 1843
The COLONIAL SECRETARY moved that the Address just received from His Excellency, be entered on the minutes of proceedings, and considered to-morrow (Friday).
See Original: “LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1843,” The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 – 1848), Saturday 4 November 1843, p.2
The Female Factory Online 