Criticisms of the Convict System Aired by Moles Worth Committee - Essay Example

Criticisms of the convict system aired by Moles worth Committee Insert name Insert Tutor Insert course Insert date Introduction Convict life in New South Wales from 1787 to around 1868 was characterized by shiploads of convicts being sent to Australia form British prisons. The transportation was done as a step to deal with overcrowding in British prisons as well as provide labor to the new British colony. The convicts were assigned to settlers and government officials to provide labor for the growth of the new economy. Until the 1830s, few people still disagreed with the system of transporting convicts as a way of punishment.1 Fortunately, as the 1830s went on humanitarian and liberal views concerning convict transportation were gaining ground. More people were becoming opposed to such transportation, with the main opponents being the urban dwelling, immigrant middle and working classes (Turnbull, 2008). The fact that Escaped convicts committed crimes in the countryside made many people believe that transportation was neither desirable nor necessary. Others argued that the assigned convicts were lazy and highly unreliable. These two reasons coupled with other humanitarian reasons facilitated the opposition of convict transportation to New South Wales. In Britain, the convict transportation system had also gained a lot of opposition with many arguing that punishment should reform the criminal rather than terrify or harden. However, from the British perspective the issue of convict transportation was faced with mixed reactions. Most of the free migrants were opposed to convict labor. To others convict transportation hindered political reforms. Other people however, still thought that the system had little uniformity.2 Criticism presented by the Molesworth Committee In 1837, the Molesworth Committee was established to investigate and give a report on the transportation of the convicts to New South Wales (Turnbull, 2008). The men in the committee represented a cross section of political views of many people with Molesworth as it chairman. The committee consisted of members selected from the House of Commons. The committee was to investigate into the system of transported, “its efficacy as punishment, its influence on the moral state of society in the penal colonies and how far it is susceptible to improvement”3. The committee held about 38 meetings between 1837 and 1838. It examined 23 witnesses (interestingly, most of these people were already against transportation). The committee took evidence from many people and wrote a large report regarding transportation of convicts and overall Australian convict History. The results presented in the report included issues concerning inequalities in the assignment of the convicts to settlers, bad behavior of the assigned convicts, prevailing conditions in the penal settlements, and immorality shown by convict women. This paper tries to capture some of these issues concerning the convict system that were presented in the report as well as the validity of such criticisms. The Molesworth Committee presented its findings to the government, concluded that the system of convict transportation was not an efficient method of punishment, and therefore should be abolished. The committee also concluded that transportation was very expensive thus giving another reason for its abolishment. The committee also concluded that the penal colonies were so far away that people back in Britain were unaware of the severity of the convict system. Consequently they had no solid reasons to deter transportation of convicts. According to the report, the convicts were treated like slaves. They were subjected to suffering and punishment in the penal colonies (Meyering, 2010). The use of the lash to punish the convicts and subject them to forced labor was a characteristic feature of the penal systems. The report criticized settler violence evident in the convict system. The final report by the Molesworth committee portrayed the colonies as areas of violence and human suffering and called for an end in the transportation. The report recommended an immediate stop in the transportation as soon as practicable rather than immediately.4 The findings from the report were publicized in a manner that allowed for efficient circulation. Findings from the report played a significant role in building a case against convict transportation. The committee relied on the practice of flogging to develop its arguments on the issue of suffering towards the convicts (Meyering, 2010). The use of corporal punishment in the penal colonies had effects not only in the slaves but also in their masters. Some masters gained pleasure by administering corporal punishment to their slaves (Altink, 2002). In the report it was recorded that the “average amount of pain inflicted upon offenders…is very considerable”5 Molesworth was the committee member who was very persistent in questioning witnesses concerning corporal punishment. All the witnesses who lived within the colon were questioned about the extent of the punishment and its effectiveness6 The report also depicted transportation as a form of slavery and the conditions of the slave are in most cases very poor. According to the report convictism is a hindrance to self governance and therefore, is supposed to be abolished.7 However, this report introduces a lot of biasness. Select committees are in most cases controlled by those who create. They are set up to serve personal interests of their developers. The Molesworth Committee for instance mainly represented the interests of Britain. As argued by Hirst (1983), assessment of convict systems is derived and heavily depended upon the opinions and propaganda of those who opposed it.8 The Report of the Moles worth Committee that condemned the transportation of convicts therefore, only represents the perception and interests of the people who created the committee. The Composition of that committee, its appointment, and the evidence presented before it were all done elsewhere (Townsend, 1985). The Molesworth Committee recommended that the convict transport be abolished and replaced by a two to fifteen years jail term with hard labor at home Other than the poor conditions of the penal systems and that of the convicts, other Criticisms aired by the Molesworth Committee are related to the inequalities involved in the assignment of the convicts. As Townsend (1985) records, the convicts were assigned immediately after arrival and that assignment is one of the most criticized aspects of the convict system. According to the Molesworth Committee report “demand has exceeded the supply, the obtaining convict laborers has become, therefore, to a certain degree a matter of favor”9 The committee tried to justify their point on the issue of assignment of convicts but failed to provide evidence in support of the claim. This made the charge of favoritism a very serious matter in the then British colony. Failing to support the claim that the assignment of convicts was faced with a lot of inequalities, the report relied on to certain government regulations for support.10 These regulations developed in 1835 and further revised in 1838 stipulated that the assignment of the convicts was largely governed by individual convict skills and the masters landholdings (Foster, 1983). There was a published list of the convicts and the Governor had the power to withdraw a convict from the master. The main source of criticism presented by the Molesworth Committee arose from lack of adequate classification of the convicts based on age, character or the nature of the offence committed. However, such criticism may not be necessarily valid as there are opposing reports presented by different authors. For instance, Bourke pointed out the difficulties in managing the convicts from Britain but also noted that there was some form of classification based on some form of law. There was also classification according to skills of the convicts (Bourke, 1834). According to claims by the Committee, assignment was a matter of chance. In essence assignment had its own logic that worked out as opposed to claims by the committee. The mechanics behind assignment were however not as arbitrary as implied by the committee.11 Another criticism of the convict system presented in the Molesworth Committee report regards the Unruly behavior of the convicts. The behavior of the assigned convicts was an important subject of concern in relation to law and order, as well as moral aspect of the colony. On this note, the report provides a detailed account of the usual vices in society: disobedience, idleness, laziness, drunkenness, immorality and theft.12 The report also notes that the behavior of convict agricultural laborers (the smallest group). “Were said to be either ill or well depending on how they were treated by their masters”13 In presenting this point the Committee used the phrase ‘were said to be..’ the use of such a phrase casts some doubt on the validity of that view concerning the behavior of the assigned convicts. If the committee was sure that the behavior of the convicts also depended on how they were treated by their masters, then the committee should have considered other groups as well. Could there be any possibility of applying the same assumption to other groups of assigned convicts? The Molesworth committee report also criticized the convict system in terms of the immorality of the convict women. The committee considered female convicts separately in its examination of the convict discipline. The report condemned women and threw a lot of accusations towards them. There was a lot of hypocrisy in the manner in which the report considered women, for, as Hirst (1983) ,argues in his paper, Sir William Moles worth who was the chairman of the committee was a ‘notorious libertine’14 According to the report, “all female convicts, all of them, with no exception, are drunken and abandoned prostitutes; and even is any of them claimed to be well-conducted, the disproportion of the sexes in the penal colonies offered irresistible temptations….they are commonly employed as public prostitutes….and marriages among convicts rarely turn out well”15 It is clear from this quotation that according to the report women were clearly depicted as immoral. They were visualized as people with no value or dignity in society. According to the reports convict women cannot stand in marriages therefore will depend on prostitution for their financial support. This is because most of them are unemployed. Michael Sturma, in his report concluded that the behavior of female convicts was quite the same as that of their lower-class counterparts in Britain (Sturma, 1978). Most observers give their personal opinions concerning the behavior of convict women but fail to explain to us their reaction to life in the colony. The Molesworth Committee stresses on the fact that women were prone to prostitution since their numbers were less and men heavily outnumbered women. This imbalance in numbers has led to the usual conclusion that as a result of women being less, they were abused and exploited.16 This point was so much stressed in the report as the reason for immorality in convict women. Marian Aveling was opposed to such argument and concluded that the low numbers of women was an advantage that could be taken as an opportunity.17 Being in short supply, the women were in high demand therefore stood a better position their price (Aveling, 1978). This made the women not to be cheap as had been depicted in the report. Some studies show that about two thirds of the female convicts got married within the first four years of their arrival. These women were therefore able to improve their livelihoods as well as their economic status. This was according to the 1828 census. This argument provides a different picture from the normal one brought forward in the Moles worth Committee in which female convicts are seen as immoral and unproductive people in society The Moles worth Committee criticized the convict system to be characterized by inequalities in the assignment of convicts, bad behavior of the convicts, poor conditions of the penal systems and immorality of the convict women. However, this paper is of the opinion that the extent to which this claims were laid down were invalid. This is because the committee was setup to support the interests of the British and settlers then. The committee report was objective and biased having been formed to dramatize the need for a decision, which had already been made to put a stop to convict transportation. Most of the members of the Molesworth Committee were committed to reform British laws and were against the system of convict transportation and assignment for instance John Russell and William Molesworth.18 Based on these chances are very high that the results presented by such a committee would very bias against the transportation system. Conclusion The direct impact of the Molesworth Committee in ending transportation has been debated a lot by historians. The committee led to changes in the convict labor system as it painted a picture of a corrupt colonial life and eventually all this resulted in the abolishment of the transportation system to New South Wales in 1940 (Hughes, 1987). Overall, this paper has questioned the validity of the criticisms aired by the Molesworth Committee concerning the convict transportation system. This is formed on the basis that the committee was set up with the intention of depicting the transportation system as a cruel and inhuman method of punishment. The committee was developed to strengthen on the decision already made to stop the transportation. This therefore makes the extent of the Molesworth Criticism invalid Bibliography Altink, H. (2002). "An Outrage on all decency":abolitionist reactions to floggingJamaican slave women, 1780-1834. Slavery & Abolition 23 (2) , 107-122. Aveling, M. (1978). 'She only married to be free;or Cleopatra Vindicated 1. Push 2 , 116-123. Bourke. (1834, January 15). Bourke to Stanley. H.R.A. i . XVIII , pp. 317-318. Foster, S. (1983). 'Convict Assignment in New South Wales in the 1830s'. Push 15 , 37-38. Hirst, J. B. (1983). Convict Society and its Enemies. Sydney. Hughes, R. (1987). The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to New South Wales. London. Meyering, I. B. (2010). Abolitionism, Settler Violence and the case against Flogging. History Australia, Vol. 7, No. 1 . Sturma, M. (1978). 'Eye of the Beholder: The Stereotype of Women Convicts, 1788-1852'. Labour History, No.34 , 3-10. Townsend. (1985). A 'Mere Lottery':The Convict System in New South Wales Thruogh the Eyes of the Molesworth Committee. Push From the Bush, No 21 , 58-86. Turnbull, L. H. (2008). The End of Transportation. Sydney: Dictionary of Sydney. Read More