Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/234

 130 PHILLIP 1786-08 the Governors of the Australian colonies and New Zealand ; but there the matter ended. The natives all over Australia have been left in the enjoyment of their most brutalising laws and customs^ and the consequence has justified Sir George Grey's contention. The only measures that have been adopted with a view to their redemption are, the Schools and establishment of schools for aboriginal children and the distribution of rations aind clothing among the old and infirm. According to the last report of the Aborigines Pro- tection Board, the census taken in October, 1887, showed that the total number in New South Wales for that year, including full-blood and half-castes, was 7,902, of whom 5,042 were full-blood, and 2,860 were half-castes. The number of children attending school in the preceding year was 384 ; and the amount distributed during that year for supplies was £3,608. The race is fast disappearing in this colony, and the date DisappMT- of its final disappearance cannot be very far ofE. Phillip race. estimated that there were fully 1,500 natives living about the shores of Botany Bay, Port Jackson, and Broken Bay in his time ; but there are none to be seen now. Taking his estimate as a basis for calculation, there were probably many thousands at that time scattered over the immense territory included in the boundaries of New South Wales ; and at the present day, had not their natural increase been summarily checked by contact with civilisation, instead of the melancholy remnant of the tribes now struggling against destiny, large masses of them would have been gaining their own subsistence at the spear's point. That would have Capability occurrcd in the ordinary course of nature. Whether the ufe. interests of civilisation are better served by the destruction of the race than they would have been by its preservation and redemption, is a question for philosophers to settle. That be, to make them from the very commencement amenable to British laws, both as regards themselves and Europeans'; for I hold It to be imagiiuDg a contradiction to suppose that individuals subject to savage and barbMOos laws can rise into a state of civilisation, which those laws have a nuuufcst tendency to destroy and overturn." Digitized by Google