progress in civilisation must go backwards and die out; and any proposition therefore for raising the condition of the blacks, or making them of permanent use appears to me simply utopian.
Hughenden, June 30.
R. Gray.
—Qeenslander, July 10 1880.
Sir,—Some weeks since I sent you a letter on the above subject. Living so far inland, I am not yet aware if my letter has been published or not. Assuming, however, that it has, I will ask you to allow me space for a few further remarks. Since sending the letter referred to I have read a good deal in the Queenslander on the same question, which has set me wondering how it is that in the colonies, where the art of—well—say "romancing" is cultivated to such an extent as to give rise to the necessity of a new proverb—"Believe nothing that you hear, and only half what you see"—how it is that town people continue to place such child-like faith in bush stories? At the present moment I believe there is an expensive party being fitted out in Sydney to go to look for half-caste children, toothless roan ponies, and other curious things in the west of Queensland, while the very country in which these wonders are said to exist has been occupied by cattle nearly three years, during which time it has been constantly ridden over by stockmen and patrolled by the Native Police. And in newspapers nearer home I have read of blacks being found in the same locality in a state of semi-civilisation, living in good houses, &c. Stories of this sort have always followed the taking up of new country, and always will do so as surely as the day follows night. Yet they are still published from time to tine by too-confiding editors, who get them on what they consider no doubt reliable authority. The "new country" theme has always been a fovorite one with the bush "blower," presenting as it does such an extent and variety of play for his fancy without risk of contradiction. But the subject which has the greatest fascination of all for the romancer is the Native Police. In the first place the public is always partial to tales of massacres and bloody murders. Then the Native Police officer is a man who can always be attacked with impunity, as he is not allowed to defend himself, and, if he were, there is a "certain section of the community" who will hear nothing but evil of a Native Police officer. But what more than anything else has contributed to make this such a popular theme for the storytellers is the law which makes the Native Police a secret service. Why, it raises it at once to the level of the old secret societies which have furnished plots for half the sensational novels of Europe! I shall refer to this law further on. What I wish to point out now is that the public (barring the section alluded to above) will require some further evidence before they gie implicit credence to the tales you have published. So far your chief authority appears to be a certain "colonial experience" on——Downs station. The only insight you have given us into his character is that he was allowed to go out as a friend with a Native Police officer, and that on his return be turned round and accused that officer of being guilty of a almost inhuman cruelty and murder. Now if your "colonial experience" was a man of ordinary intelligence he must have been aware that he was only allowed to accompany the secret-service expedition on the assumption that he was a gentleman and would not divulge the secrets which might come to his knowledge. Was the sense of public duty so abnormally strong in this young gentleman as to cause him to violate the most sacred laws of honor and comradeship? Or was he influenced by some less worthy motive? If the latter, why then such a man may have exaggerated or fabricated the whole story.
And now with regard to this law of keeping the Native Police doings secret. The plain history of it, I take to be this: We, rightly or wrongly, have seized and occupied the blackfellows' country. We have invited our fellow-countrymen, with their wives and their children, to come over and share in the spoil; but we have tried to keep hidden from their eyes the inevitable consequences of our lawless act. And it would have been well, no doubt, could we have kept these things from the knowledge of our town people, and especially of our women and children. But the very course which was taken to ensure this end has had the very contrary effect. It has had the effect of enveloping in mystery all our dealings with the aborigines, and the gross exaggerations which were the natural outcome of this have so inflamed the imaginations of these people that they think we—and they through us—are responsible for atrocities more revolting than those we heard of during the Turco-Russian war. Seeing, then, that this system has so entirely failed in its object, let us do away with it, and let it be openly known to our people the price they have to pay for
