I 



THE PA8T0RALI8T AND THE NATIVE 129 



a close observer. Suddenly, as they ride, one dismounts 

 and picks up a small piece of bark that had lately been 

 ignited. The other troopers gather round him. They 

 next examine every foot of the way. They then find 

 a tree whence a branch has been cut by a tomahawk. 

 The trail has been found. Patiently, for hours, they 

 follow it up, and soon they discover fresh signs of a 

 body of blacks having passed that way. A yell is 

 heard from one of the troopers, and all of them gallop 

 up at full speed and disappear in the scrub. A black is 

 stationed at each corner, and \\\i\\ two troopers they 

 charge the centre of the black tribe that has been 

 found. They soon make short Avork. In a few minutes 

 the resistance is broken. — From Victoria the institution 

 passed to New South Wales and Queensland. 



The gradual destruction of the aboriginal blacks was 

 the greatest of the negative changes that the settlement 

 of Australia produced. The last of the continents was 

 converted from a black to a white. With the dis- 

 appearance of the indigenous dark race and the advent 

 of the most robust of the fair races it was definitely 

 launched on its career as a rival and leader of other 

 continental peoples. This great obstacle to the complete 

 colonisation of Australia had necessarily to be removed. 

 Much injustice and many wrongs were doubtless in- 

 flicted in the course of it. All such acts must be 

 branded ; and all have been bitterly expiated. They 

 do not affect the justness of the process. Landed 

 reserves have been made and aids to soothe the sufferings 

 of a dying race. But the natives had no longer a place 

 in countries where all the conditions of existence, even 

 the climatic, had been radically changed. 



There can be no question of right or wrong in such a 

 case. The only right is that of superiority of race, and 

 the greater inherent capability on the part of the whites ; 

 the only real Avrong on the part of the blacks is their 

 all-round inferiority and their inability to till the ground 

 or even make use of its natural pastures. All other 

 wrongs were incidental and, in comparison, trivial. 



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