But still the want of labor remains : the expense and
difficulty of obtaining it is so great, that many instances
might be adduced where it has cost more in labour than the
crops have produced, and the harvest could not be gathered
in without military aid. It is, however, particularly in
public works that this want has been experienced; roads,
bridges, &c., are only made at a ruinous expense, and on
this account such important works are of necessity limited.
Thirty years ago, the traveller who visited New South



184 CONVICTS.
Wales was greatly struck by the excellence of the roads
and public edifices, though, coming direct from England;
twenty years later he would be still more surprised by ihe
deterioration which had taken place in this respect, although
then only going from the infant colony of New Zealand,
It was convict labor which accomplished the first state, and
it was the want of a substitute for it which accounted for the
retrograde condition.
The first and only improvement of our public ways for
years in New Zealand was effected by what are called Eaa-d
labour men, viz., the inmates of the gaol, and little as they
effected, for their name was quite a misnomer, still it was all
the colony had to depend upon for local improvements, and
very probably would have continued to be so up to this day,
had not heavy taxes been imposed and great debts incurred,
for it is a fact that nearly aU our public roads were made
with borrowed money, which now forms the nucleus of a
national debt which no settler wUl ever live to see liquidated.
