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.
7thly. It is highly important that the system adopted should be such as
would add to the security and protection of the settlers, and thereby
induce their assistance and co-operation, instead, as has too often been
the case hitherto with past measures, of exciting a feeling of irritation
and dislike between the two races.
I believe that all these objects might be accomplished, in a great
degree, by distributing food regularly to all the natives, in their
respective districts.
[Note 111: The whole of my remarks on the Aborigines having been hurriedly
compiled, on board ship, during the voyage from Australia, it was not
until my arrival in England that I became aware that a plan somewhat
similar to this in principle, was submitted to Lord John Russell by a Mr.
J. H. Wedge, and was sent out to the colony of New South Wales, to be
reported upon by the authorities. I quote the following extract from Mr.
La Trobe's Remarks on Mr. Wedge's letter, as shewing an opinion differing
from my own (Parliamentary Papers, p. 130). "With reference to the supply
of food and clothing, it has not been hitherto deemed advisable to
furnish them indiscriminately to all natives visiting the homesteads. In
one case, that of the Western Port District, the assistant protector has
urged that this should be the case; but I have not felt myself
sufficiently convinced of the policy or expediency of such measure to
bring it under his Excellency's notice."]
I have previously shewn, that from the injuries the natives sustain at
our hands, in a deprivation of their usual means of subsistence, and a
banishment from their homes and possessions, there is at present no
alternative for them but to remain the abject and degraded creatures they
are, begging about from house to house, or from station to station, to
procure food, insulted and despised by all, and occasionally tempted or
driven to commit crimes for which a fearful penalty is enacted, if
brought home to them. I have given instances of the extent to which the
evils resulting from the anomalous state of our relations with them are
aggravated by the kind of feeling which circumstances engender on the
part of the Colonists towards them.
