Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/191

 No effectual protection, therefore, being afforded to the settlers, as far as the natives are concerned, the feeling of many of them is this, that the government, by its being so inadequate to the discharge of those duties for which all governments exist, namely, the protection of life and property, has, in fact, abdicated its office, and forfeited their allegiance; and they feel quite at liberty to take the law into their own hands, and to protect themselves, absolved from all moral restraint on its part—the only question being one of prudence, whether they are likely by such conduct to run the risk of detection and punishment. Others there are of higher principles and more enlarged views, who prefer incurring all risks to violating the laws, but who hope, when the true state of the case is laid before the home government, that some attempt may be made to remedy the present anomalous state of things. But amongst all there is but one feeling of dissatisfaction, that no efficient police force has been established, to protect them in that course of forbearance so rigidly insisted on.

But whether the present system be right or wrong in theory, it is one which in practice is not, and cannot be carried out; and if I had no other objection to it, this would, in my mind, be a sufficient one, that the whole thing is a delusion from beginning to end. It may serve to set the minds of people in England at rest on the subject; but that is all it does. The English law has no more effect in restraining the natives from the commission of outrages on the settlers, by any fear of its sanctions, or any respect for its authority, than has