ABSTRACT
In Van Diemen's Land this League, like its predecessor, was a farce. 2 Lady Denison was amused at Lord Grey's solicitude in allowing a man-of-war to call at Hobart : 'Could he only take a peep at us, he would see everything going peaceably; a noisy party indeed talking, and eating public dinners, but doing nothing in the way of opposition.'3 The Lieutenant-Governor thought 1,500 or 2,000 ticket-of-leave men a year could readily be absorbed; 4 for, despite the 'solemn protests' of the League, they were more eagerly sought after than ever, and subscribers to the League themselves employed them.s Yet he could not but admit that the working-classes, to a man, were opposed to transportation; that the Bishop and clergy and other very respectable people were also averse to it; and that many employers, some on moral, some on economic grounds, were anxious that it should be discontinued. Indeed even the merchants and shopkeepers and property-owners whom he brought forward on the other side declared themselves to be in principle opposed to it: it was simply that they saw clearly 'the ruin which must ensue, should the rate of wages in this colony be assimilated to that in New South Wales'.6 It might be possible to continue transportation to Van Diemen's Land, but only because a small class, for the sake of its economic advantages, were prepared to defy the wishes of the great majority of the population.
