482 SUGGESTIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT 
regularly to all the natives, in their respective 
districts.* 
I have previously shewn, that from the injuries 
the natives sustain at our hands, in a deprivation of 
their usual means of subsistence, and a banishment 
from their homes and possessions, there is at present 
no alternative for them but to remain the abject and 
degraded creatures they are, begging about from 
house to house, or from station to station, to procure 
food, insulted and despised by all, and occasionally 
tempted or driven to commit crimes for which a 
fearful penalty is enacted, if brought home to them. 
I have given instances of the extent to which the 
evils resulting from the anomalous state of our 
relations with them are aggravated by the kind of 
feeling which circumstances engender on the part of 
* The whole of my remarks on the Aborigines having been 
hurriedly compiled, on board ship, during the voyage from 
Australia, it was not until my arrival in England that I became 
aware that a plan somewhat similar to this in principle, was 
submitted to Lord John Russell by a Mr. J. H. Wedge, and was 
sent out to the colony of New South Wales, to be reported upon 
by the authorities. I quote the following extract from Mr. La 
Trobe’s Remarks on Mr. Wedge’s letter, as shewing an opinion 
differing from my own (Parliamentary Papers, p. 130). “ With 
reference to the supply of food and clothing, it has not been 
hitherto deemed advisable to furnish them indiscriminately to all 
natives visiting the homesteads. In one case, that of the Western 
Port District, the assistant protector has urged that this should 
be the case; but I have not felt myself sufficiently convinced of 
the policy or expediency of such measure to bring it under his 
Excellency’s notice.” 
