THE ABORIGINES AND THEIR TREATMENT 233 



element treated the natives, as a rule, with firmness and justice, 

 respected the laws which aimed at their protection, and gave them 

 no cause for personal revenge as the answer to brutal license. 



The cessation of outrages diverted Sir George Gipps from im- 

 mediate action. Such a multitude of advisers offered their own 

 infallible specifics for the salvation of the natives, physically and 

 spiritually, that he could not decide upon the solution of the 

 problem which Lord Stanley had handed over to him. Meanwhile, 

 he did nothing, and the Protectors held on to their offices until the 

 end of 1849, when they were formally abolished, and a Board for 

 the Protection of the Aborigines reigned in their stead. Out of the 

 wilderness of official correspondence, reports and returns pertaining 

 to the protectorate period, fragments may be gathered from the 

 pens of Mr. Thomas and Mr. Parker which contain valuable and 

 reliable information on aboriginal lore, manners and customs, with- 

 out much claim to the accuracy of scientific anthropology. But 

 such results were dearly paid for at 60,000, which the department 

 cost the State, without achieving any greater success than satisfy- 

 ing the appetites of something like 1,000 savages, and distributing 

 to them the annual dole of shirts and blankets. 



Unhappily the same tale of failure has to be told of the efforts 

 of the missionaries. The Church of England, the Wesleyans, the 

 Baptists and the Moravians all took an active part in the good 

 work, and as the stations which they established as spheres of 

 influence were widely separated, these efforts were not retarded by 

 personal or local jealousies. But the result was equally barren in 

 all cases. Zeal was not wanting, but the material to work upon 

 had been hopelessly contaminated by a different class of instructors, 

 and the native mind could not grasp the high ideals and philosophi- 

 cal deductions which the enthusiastic apostles thought necessary as 

 a foundation. They laid it down as incontrovertible that Christian- 

 ity must pioneer civilisation : it must be the starting-point. Hence, 

 it is not to be wondered at that their hope perpetually alternated 

 with despair, and it seems quite childish for a man of Mr. Parker's 

 experience to be driven to write : " What can be done with a people 

 whose language knows no such terms as justice, holiness, sin, guilt 

 or redemption ". 



