CHAP. IX.] FOR THE NATIVES? 173 



lish emigrants, but the original inhabitants have 

 either disappeared or greatly decreased in number 

 and natural vigour. The East Indies may perhaps 

 be cited in disproof of this opinion, but they can 

 scarcely be termed colonies in the true sense of the 

 word. In our Asiatic possessions the number of 

 Europeans is too small to effect extensive changes; 

 the natives are possessed of a civilization and a re- 

 ligion of their own, which through ages have taken 

 deep root, and, consequently, were not so easily 

 affected by foreign influence; whilst at the same 

 time, by a wise policy, our civil and religious insti- 

 tutions were never in any way forced upon them. 

 To India, therefore, what I have said above does 

 not apply. 



If in New Zealand a too violent change is intro- 

 duced at once, if the natives are forced to live 

 amongst the Europeans in towns, or if they are 

 driven from their cultivated lands to others, their 

 future prospects will be gloomy ; if, on the con- 

 trary, a strong protective administration watches 

 over their interests against the baneful selfishness 

 of colonial schemers, if their intellect is judiciously 

 improved by good and useful books, then indeed I 

 believe that it will be possible for them to continue 

 in the midst of a prosperous and thriving colony, 

 until in the course of time they become amalga- 

 mated with it. 



The Abbe Raynal says, in his ' History of the 

 Establishments and of the Commerce of the Euro- 



