Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/233

 AND THE NATIVES. 129 gether beyond the power of any one man in the colony to 1788-93 accomplish^ especially at a time when the struggle for exist- ence was so sharply felt. It was pre-eminently the work of a central Government; the means of doing it, as well as The Home the moral obligation to do it, lay there, and not with the em- and iu ® ... . obligationa. oarrassed head of the colonial administration ; still less with tte scattered settlers, who so soon found themselves engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with the natives. There is nothing to show that the Government entertained even the idea of improving their mode of life. Phillip was instructed Phillip's to open an intercourse with them and to conciliate their affections; every one in the colony was to be enjoined to live in amity and kindness with them ; they were not to be wantonly destroyed or unnecessarily interrupted in their occupations. But nothing was said about civilising them. That was Phillip's idea, conceived as soon as he found him- self in their midst, and carried out as far as his means and or^ani. opportunities would allow. Savages, however, are not to be required. reclaimed by individual acts of kindness ; if the work is to be done at all, it can only be done on an organised system. That mucli might have been effected in that direction under the influence of a sound method of administration, devised and controlled by the Home Government, will hardly be denied. Sir George Grey offered several practical suggestions Grey's in a " report upon the best means of promoting the civili- sation of the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia,^' submitted by him to Lord John Russell in 1840. Among these sug- gestions was one that might at least have been tested in Australia, as it has been to some extent in India: that savage customs, inconsistent with civilised life, and neces- sa^•s^re sarily tending to perpetuate savagery, should be prohibited.* The report was *' approved," and copies of it were sent to my fitll conviction that whilst those tribes which are in communication with the Enropeans are allowed to execute their barbarous laws and customs upon one anotoer, so long will they remain hopelessly immersed in their present state of barbarism ; and however unjust such a proceeding might at first sight appear, I believe that the course pointed out by true humanity would Z Digitized by Google
 * Joomals of Two Expeditions, vol. ii, p. 373. — *'I do not hesitate to assert