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they retreat before the advance of civilization ; the game on which 
they and their fatliers have from time immemorial preyetl 
becoming scarcer and more scarce ; their encroachment on tlie lands 
of their neighbours resented in front, and forbidden to trespass on 
the settled country in their rear; conflicts with botli hostile native 
tribes on whose soil they intrude, and white settlers who are 
intruding upon theirs—soon make the struggle for existence hard 
indeed. Nor is the position much improved by government in- 
terference. The poor natives are placed upon “reservations” and 
assisted in various ways, but their freedom is gone : they are caged, 
but can never be tamed ; and should they dare to a.ssert their right 
to their own, terrible reprisals are made, and fresh restrictions 
imposed. All hope lost, all occupation gone, unable to conform to 
the new conditions of life imposed upon them, they rapidly 
decrease in numbers and finally cease to cumber the soil, w'hich the 
colonist turns to so much better account. Of course the more 
confined the area, as in the case of Tasmania, the more rajnd 
becomes the process of extinction. It needs all our philosophy to 
contemplate calmly this sad picture, but so it is through all 
creation; “the survival of the fittest” is always the result where 
the struggle for existence is sharpest. And can it be said 
that the world has suffered by the vast extension of the English- 
speaking racel I think not. We ourselves pa.ssed through the 
fire, and Homan, Saxon, Danish, and Norman invasions, or 
military occupations, have so left their stamp both physical and 
mental upon our nice, as to produce a people whoso colonial 
possessions, small as their island home is, cover one-sixth of the 
surface of the globe, ivith a present population of more than two 
hundred and four and a half millions of beings (Enc. Britt, 
cd. 9, vol. vi. p. 159). There can, I think, be no doubt that the mixed 
race which will succeed many of the native populations at present 
existing will bo vastly superior to that which will make way for it, 
but the process is a cruel one and fearful to contemplate, even when 
divested of the horrors with Avhich the evil passions of the white 
races, and chiefly — I blush to own it — of monsters calling themselves 
Englishmen, have surrounded it. I need only refer you to such 
