130 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



This was the capital offence, and it was irredeemable. 

 Let their usefulness as shepherds and stockmen be 

 admitted, fully let it be allowed that, when the gold- 

 fever broke out, many a station was completely de- 

 serted by its hands, and the case for the blacks and 

 against the whites is not really bettered. They could 

 work as servants of the white immigrant ; as Darwin 

 already found in the thirties, they could not work for 

 themselves. They were not industrial units. The 

 Maoris learnt to farm ; the Australian blacks never 

 learnt to keep sheep or carry on a cattle-run. 



Their disappearance was a natural necessity. It 

 came about in obedience to a natural law. It was 

 effected by natural processes, and folloMed on the lines 

 of the substitution of vegetal and animal species all 

 over the world. 



