Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/543

 AND THE MILITARY. 429^ respect to liheir subordination to the Governor. An alter- 1789 native course presented itself in tke appointment of the Commanding officer to that position ; but although such a plan would have prevented any conflict between the civil and military branches of the establishment^ it would have resulted in different and perhaps more serious complications. In this^ as in other instances, may be seen how naturally and inevitably the most unexpected consequences flow from Mistakes mistakes in matters of government. Looking at it in the ment light of subsequent experience — ^^'the stem lights of the ship " — ^the train of evils which marked the first years of the settlement seems but the necessary result of the un- fortunate circumstances which marked its foundation. The struggle for predominance which began so soon between the heads of the civil and the military departments would pro- bably have taken place, whoever might have been in charge of them; because it was mainly attributable to the fact that the proper subordination of the military power to the Executive had not been provided for in the first instance. Under such circumstances, it is but fair to say that Major The foree of circum* Rosses errors of judgment were to some extent the result of stance, the position in which he found himself ; and that although a man possessed of great self-restraint and desire to promote the public interests might have avoided the unseemly dis- putes with the Governor in which he indulged, yet according to the ordinary working of human nature they were perfectly natural if not unavoidable events. On thQ same principle, the still more painful phenomena which made their appear- ance in other directions may be accounted for by tracing them to their fountain heads in the defective organisation of the community ; just as we may trace the river system of the country by following each of its broad streams to its source among the mountains. The omission to provide Education for the moral and religious training of the people by the*"^'^^"' appointment of overseers, teachers, and ministers of religion in sufficient number, led to consequences of which Phillip Digitized by Google