police have been maintained by the Imperial Government; but, in all probability, there is no country in which life and property are safer than in West Australia. The benefits which have been derived by the Colony from the introduction of convicts must therefore be considered as far out-weighing any disadvantages resulting from it. One, however, of these must be noticed as of considerable importance. The convicts have been all males, and their numbers have greatly increased the disproportion between the sexes which existed before their introduction. To this very many of the crimes committed by them, and indeed by others, must be directly or indirectly imputed, and its evil influence has affected the natives even more than the colonists.
A few years more must bring the operation of the system to an end. Transportation ceased in 1868. In 10 years more, probably, the bond class will no longer exist, having been exhausted by death, or by the termination of penal sentences, and the distinction between bond and free be a remembrance of the past.
The number of the bond class has been already considerably diminished by death, as well as by many, who had made money, having left the Colony for other lands, where their past condition would not be known. Transportation ceased in West Australia in consequence of the remonstrances of the Eastern Colonies, which still watch jealously against the introduction of convicts, and will not permit them to enter until they have been free men for three years. Yet the East was first opened to colonization by convicts, and many of the wealthy and influential inhabitants are descendants of that class. From South Australia alone they have always been excluded. The direct effect produced by the transporta-
