Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/119

 Again, many who are good and well-conducted members of an old community in which they have been brought up, are greatly indebted, for the character they possess, to those restraints which it has wisely, and from long experience, provided. The entire change of habits, and the wider range which a new settlement involves, not to mention the contact and neighbourhood of tribes in the lowest state of barbarism, have more or less a relaxing tendency as regards the moral texture of such minds; and, if the laws of the colony into which they are transplanted are not strictly maintained, but, on the contrary, impose little or no restraint, society must of course deteriorate, and the entire community ultimately suffer. It is indeed a truism, but one involving grave considerations, that it is much easier to prevent the disorganization of a community, than to reunite and restore it when once it has been suffered to lapse into disorder and demoralization.

It is also of the utmost importance to bear in mind, that a colonial Government that cannot secure, in ordinary cases, protection to the settlers and their property, must operate most injuriously and cruelly upon the aborigines themselves. These encompass them on every side—they cannot help doing so. Each tribe has its recognised boundaries and landmarks. If but one is disturbed, it experiences a difficulty in falling back, and retiring upon the tribes in its rear, who are similarly situated in their turn. They continue, therefore, to hover about their ancient grounds, and depend for their subsistence upon them. The more incompetent the colonial establishments to keep order in the colony and prevent depredation, the more liable will be the dispersed settlers to take the law into their own hands; or rather, to make law for themselves, and unreservedly to execute such law as they think fit, or as passion or caprice may dictate, in every case in which the natives may be involved. The