Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/206

 experience may enable you to suggest some general plan, by which we may acquit ourselves of the obligations which we owe towards this helpless race of beings. I should not, without the most extreme reluctance, admit that nothing can be done; that with respect to them alone the doctrines of Christianity must be inoperative, and the advantages of civilization incommunicable. I cannot acquiesce in the theory that they are incapable of improvement, and that their extinction, before the advance of the white settler, is a necessity which it is impossible to control. I recommend them to your protection and favourable consideration, with the greatest earnestness, but at the same time with perfect confidence; and I assure you that I shall be willing and anxious to co-operate with you in any arrangement for their civilization which may hold out a fair prospect of success."

It seems probable that some new system will be adopted in place of the protectorate. It appears to me that the protectors began at the wrong end. Collecting together hordes of savages, some of whom had never seen the face of a white man, without any means of controlling them, was a system which could have scarcely been expected to succeed. There was also combined with the large expenditure on these establishments a penny wisdom in details, which was calculated to render the other expenditure useless, even if the system had been of a more promising nature. The whole establishment at Mount Rouse consisted, in July, 1842, of the assistant-protector, an overseer, a constable, a bullock-driver, a carpenter, and, I believe, another man. I am not sure whether the constable was a convict or no, but three of the others were. Of these, the bullock-driver and another were constantly away fetching stores, &c. There are few men who, in such a position, would have firmness enough to control a mob, consisting