480 SUGGESTIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT 
assured would be but the stronger and more lasting 
from its being founded upon acts of justice and 
humanity. It is upon these principles that I have 
based the few suggestions I am going to offer for 
the improvement of our policy towards the natives. 
I know that by many they will be looked upon as 
chimerical or impracticable, and I fear that more 
will begrudge the means necessary to carry them 
into effect ; but unless something of the kind be 
done — unless some great and radical change be 
effected, and some little compensation made for the 
wrongs and injuries we inflict — I feel thoroughly 
satisfied that all we are doing is but time and 
money lost, that all our efforts on behalf of the 
natives are but idle words — voces et preterea nihil — 
that things will still go on as they have been going 
on, and that ten years hence we shall have made no 
more progress either in civilizing or in christianizing 
them than we had done ten years ago, whilst every 
day and every hour is tending to bring about their 
certain and total extinction. 
Suggestions for the Improvement of the 
Aborigines. 
1st. It appears that the most important point, 
in fact almost the only essential one, in the first in- 
stance, is to gain such an influence or authority over 
the Aborigines as may be sufficient to enable us to 
induce them to adopt, or submit to any regulations 
that we make for their improvement, and that to 
