saying that it is only by inspiring fear and respect we can influence adult blacks. That is the basis of the system we wish to apply to them, and the ground on which we hope to see them brought under control—equally to the advantage of the pioneers and of the blacks themselves—by a police capable of punishing offenders among them, but equally able to protect the innocent and peaceful.—Queenslander, June 19, 1880.
The correspondence on the aboriginal question serves to illustrate pretty fully the differing opinions on the subject held by settlers in various parts of the colony. Writers opposed to our views generally take the same line in commenting on the facts we have brought forward; they declare that the statements are either not true or grossly exaggerated. To this we can give but one answer—their truth may be investigated by a process which the government can adopt if it pleases. We have received just as many confirmations as denials of our statements, and may fairly claim to have made out a strong primâ facie case for a thorough enquiry.
But, if we find differences in the views of our correspondents, there is also a remarkable unanimity on some essential points. Hardly a writer ventures to assert that our treatment of the blacks is a matter that does not need apology. One of our correspondents, "North Gregory," who may be taken as an exponent of those who seem to be arrayed against us, we claim as on our side in every essential point. He says that the plan of making the Native Police a secret service has led to abuses; we have insisted on the same view throughout our argument. He declares that it would be better to throw aside all pretence of dealing with aborigines according to English law, and "then we may set about devising some better scheme for subduing them." This is just our contention—the very summary of the reform we desire to effect. The Native Police are, he points out, sent into the bush with impracticable instructions; threatened with the hangman if they do what their superiors expect but do not tell them to do, and certain of ignominious dismissal from the service if they fail in obeying their understood instructions. This, we have repeated again and again, is the very plague-spot of our system—the core from which all its abominations proceed. And these being our points of agreement, wherein do we differ? Simply in the amount of credibility to be attached to particular narratives of cruelty and bloodshed which have appeared in our columns. And yet the same writer who denies these admits that the "savage ferocity" of the black troopers is a necessary quality in any force dealing with the blacks. More than that, he speaks of the "inevitable" consequences of our occupation of the country as something that ought, if possible, to be kept from the knowledge of our townspeople—especially of our women and children. It is just at this point that we find ourselves at variance. We deny that there are any "inevitable" consequences which need be concealed. There is nothing of which any people need be ashamed in taking possession of a country like Australia, occupied only by a few thinly-scattered hordes of savages without even the smallest rudiments of civilisation. That they must suffer is certainly an "inevitable consequence." They must be subdued. It is the law of the whole world that the inferior race must submit to the stronger. We inflict death and pain on the whole animal creation to provide ourselves with the
