Through so many other tribes on their line of
route, and of hunger and other privations in prosecuting them, the
messengers are but ill requited; the good feeling they displayed, or the
fatigues they went through, being recompensed only by the present of a
SMALL BLANKET AND A FEW POUNDS OF FLOUR. With these facts before us can
we say that these natives are a ferocious, irreclaimable set of savages,
and destitute of all the better attributes of humanity? yet are they
often so maligned. The very natives, who have now acted in such a
friendly manner, and rendered such important services to Europeans, are
the SAME NATIVES who were engaged in the plundering of their property,
and taking away their lives when coming over land with stock. Such is the
change which has been effected by kindness and conciliation instead of
aggression and injury; and such, I think, I may in fairness argue, would
generally be the result if SIMILAR MEANS were more frequently resorted
to.
As yet Moorunde is the only place where the experiment has been made of
assembling the natives and giving food to them; but as far as it has been
tried, it has been proved to be eminently successful. I am aware that the
system is highly disapproved of by many of the colonists, and the general
feeling among them appears to be that nothing should be given where
nothing is received, or in other words, that a native should never have
any thing given to him until he does some work for it. I still maintain
that the native has a right to expect, and that we are IN JUSTICE BOUND
to supply him with food in any of those parts of the country that we
occupy, and to do this, too, WITHOUT demanding or requiring any other
consideration from him than we have ALREADY received when we TOOK FROM
HIM his possessions and his hunting grounds. It may be all very proper to
get him to work a little if we can - and, perhaps, that MIGHT follow in
time, but we have no right to force him to a labour he is unused to, and
WHICH HE NEVER HAD TO PERFORM IN HIS NATURAL STATE, whilst we have a
right to supply him with what he has been accustomed to, BUT OF WHICH WE
HAD DEPRIVED HIM - FOOD.
If in our relations with the Aborigines we wish to preserve a friendly
and bloodless intercourse; if we wish to have their children at our
schools to be taught and educated; if we hope to bring the parents into a
state that will better adapt them for the reception of christianity and
civilization; or if we care about staying the rapid and lamentable
ravages which a contact with us is causing among their tribes, we must
endeavour to do so, by removing, as far as possible, all sources of
irritation, discontent, or suffering. We must adopt a system which may at
once administer to their wants, and at the same time, give to us a
controlling influence over them; such as may not only restrain them from
doing what is wrong, but may eventually lead them to do what is right - an
influence which I feel assured would be but the stronger and more lasting
from its being founded upon acts of justice and humanity. It is upon
these principles that I have based the few suggestions I am going to
offer for the improvement of our policy towards the natives. I know that
by many they will be looked upon as chimerical or impracticable, and I
fear that more will begrudge the means necessary to carry them into
effect; but unless something of the kind be done - unless some great and
radical change be effected, and some little compensation made for the
wrongs and injuries we inflict - I feel thoroughly satisfied that all we
are doing is but time and money lost, that all our efforts on behalf of
the natives are but idle words - voces et preterea nihil - that things will
still go on as they have been going on, and that ten years hence we shall
have made no more progress either in civilizing or in christianizing them
than we had done ten years ago, whilst every day and every hour is
tending to bring about their certain and total extinction.
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE ABORIGINES.
1st. It appears that the most important point, in fact almost the only
essential one, in the first instance, is to gain such an influence or
authority over the Aborigines as may be sufficient to enable us to induce
them to adopt, or submit to any regulations that we make for their
improvement, and that to effect this, the means must be suited to their
circumtances and habits.
2ndly. It is desirable that the means employed should have a tendency to
restrain their wandering habits, and thus gradually induce them to locate
permanently in one place.
3rdly. It is important that the plan should be of such a nature as to
become more binding in its influence in proportion to the length of time
it is in operation.
4thly. It should hold out strong inducements to the parents, willingly to
allow their children to go to, and remain at the schools.
5thly. It should be such as would operate, in some degree, in weaning the
natives from towns or populous districts.
6thly. It should offer some provision for the future career of the
children upon their leaving school, and its tendency should be of such a
character as to diminish, as far as practicable, the attractions of a
savage life.
