In the courts the blacks are defenceless, for their testimony is not accepted. The jury is not likely to declare a white man guilty of murdering a black man. On the other hand, if a white man happens to be killed by the blacks, a cry is heard throughout the whole colony.
There are, however, persons who look upon the blacks as human beings with a right to live in the land which is in fact their own. “Were I a black man, I would kill all the whites,” an Australian gentleman once said to me. One of these protectors of the blacks writes to me—
“If I thought that anything I might say on the treatment of the aborigines would in any way tend to ameliorate their present wretched condition, I would not for a moment grudge my lost health, and would plead their cause to my last breath. But alas! it were vain to hope for any improvement in their condition; for it is an immutable law of nature that the strong will prey upon the weak. I always look upon the condition of the lower order of ‘whites’ as a fearful satire on Christianity. The English nation is continually casting stones at other nations for the treatment of conquered races, but nothing could be more barbarous than their own treatment of the aborigines of Australia.”
NATIVE POLICE DISPERSING THE BLACKS.
Sketch after a description given to me on the spot.
It must be admitted that the colonists in several places have tried to protect the blacks by giving them reservations and means of existence. In Victoria there are six stations, where the natives raise crops and cattle, and receive instruction.
All this, however, is of no avail. It only gives the doomed race a short respite. It is supposed that there were 9000 blacks in Victoria when the colony was founded. There now remain scarcely 800, and many of these are half-castes, who are but little superior to the pure blacks in intelligence, while they have an even less favourable appearance.
“When civilised nations come into contact with barbarians, the struggle is but short, excepting where a dangerous climate helps the native race,” says Darwin, and history corroborates his statement. In 1872 the last Tasmanian died. His ancestors succumbed, not only because they were weaker than the invading race, but also because they were abused by the invaders. The same fate as that which overtook their brothers in Tasmania is in store for the natives of Australia. They have proved themselves almost incapable of receiving either culture or Christianity, and they have not the power to resist the onward march of civilisation. They are therefore without a future, without a home, without a hope,—a doomed race. The two races cannot exist together. If the Australian attacks the whites or their herds, he is shot; if he tries to secure the friendship of the white men, his ruin is no less certain. He is unwilling to abandon his habits of life, and for this reason the settlement of the country robs him of his means of existence, while European culture at the same time causes his moral and physical degradation.
The philanthropist is filled with sadness when he sees the original inhabitants of this strange land succumbing according to the inexorable law of degeneration. Invading civilisation has not brought development and progress to the Australian native; after a few generations his race will have disappeared from the face of the earth.