its adoption we feel convinced, if the bulk of the colonists come to realise the nature of the system they now adopt in all its naked horrors. Our correspondent remarks, "Our policy towards the blacks is bad, but it is only the game played all over the world." We deny his statement; but, even if it were so, it would still leave us in a unique position. No other settlers have to deal with a race of savages so thoroughly helpless in face of the white man's weapons as our blacks. The Dutch Boer may deal cruelly with the Kaffirs who surround him, but at least he defies the assegais of a valiant race of barbarians who can wage war with him on something like equal terms. He may be cruel, but at least he is not a coward. There is an irresistible tendency in human nature to regard with a deeper contempt the criminal who takes a cowardly advantage of his victim, than the one who risks his own skin in open conflict. Few readers of Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" have not felt that the most contemptible figure in the group of thieves to which they are introduced is the wretched sneak on the "kinchin lay," who confines himself to robbing little children too feeble to resist and too simple to seek for assistance. If we are told that the cruelties practised on our blacks are merely incidents of the struggle carried on with the natives in all parts of the world, we yet plead for a reform. We are at least adding a fresh element of disgrace to the universal horror; for if all the world is practising violent wrong doing, in its dealing with inferior races, we alone have descended to the "kinchin lay" of extermination.—Queenslander, May 8, 1880.
We make no apology for returning to the subject of the manner in which the people of this colony deal with its aboriginal inhabitants. We are determined that the public shall understand what they are doing, and that if no attempt is made at a reform the refusal shall come from people who thoroughly comprehend their responsibility. As far as we are able we shall tear away the veil with which those who know what our system is have hitherto kept it covered, and remove the ignorance in which a considerable portion of the public have been content to remain.
In order to let every side of the question be thoroughly ventilated, we have thrown open our columns to correspondence on the subject, and we have put forward a basis for a reform of the police system. For this purpose we have proposed that the police employed to regulate the natives shall consist of white men, accustomed to the bush, assisted by black trackers. Their duties should be to fight the blacks while in a state of open war against the white settlers who occupy the country; to protect them from molestation by the whites when quiet, and to bring to justice the perpetrators of the many fiendish outrages committed by Europeans on helpless and unoffending blacks; and to punish with discriminating rigor injuries committed by the blacks on the settlers. So far we have not entered into details of how the work should be done; we wish first to establish the practicability of organising such a white force. A correspondent who, under the signature of "Never Never," has undertaken to justify the treatment of black human beings as if they were "pigeons," has declared that our plan is not feasible. He alleges—(1) That good bushmen would be unwilling to join such a force, one that has lately been manned by blackfellows; (2) that the idea of using white police for the purpose is "wildly
