Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/110

96 already noticed, both the Imperial and Colonial Governments recognised a duty and endeavoured to fill it. As early as 1834, on the organization of the mounted police force, the Governor gave instructions to the officers to make themselves acquainted with the names, numbers, movements, habits, and haunts of the natives, their prejudices, and how they might be conciliated; subsequently, as above noticed, protectors were appointed. There were, however, obstacles to the accomplishment of this desire; experience alone could teach what ought to be done, and, had that then been known, men might not, in so small a community, have been found able and willing to do it. Moreover, in the early days of colonial life, prompt action is required to produce immediate results. The Colony is now prosperous, the laws respected, the natives in the settled districts submissive, and in the North they supply labor for the pastoral settlements and the pearl fishery, and are probably progressing towards civilization by their residence among the settlers. In other districts they are decreasing in number, and lingering out a poor and degraded existence.

There is no trustworthy estimate of the number of the aboriginal inhabitants of West Australia. In the settled districts they may average one to ten of the white population.

The introduction of convicts entirely changed the political and social condition of the Colony, by (1) introducing a large number of men subject to the Imperial Government, and because (2) the men so