INADMISSIBILITY OF NATIVE EVIDENCE. 499 
Important it is to prevent the elders from exercising 
an arbitrary and cruel authority over the young and 
the weak, and how necessary that the latter should 
feel themselves quite secure from the vengeance of 
the former, when endeavouring to throw off the tram- 
mels of custom and prejudice, and by embracing 
The legal disabilities of the natives have been a serious obstacle 
to their civil protection; and I feel it my duty, whilst on this 
subject, respectfully to bring under notice the necessity that still 
exists for some suitable system of judicature for the governance 
and better protection of the aboriginal races. 4 As far as personal 
influence went, the aboriginal natives have been protected from 
acts of injustice, cruelty, and oppression ; and their wants, 
wishes, and grievances have been faithfully represented to the 
Government of the colony/ and this, under the circumstances, 
was all that could possibly be effected. There is, however, rea- 
son to fear that the destruction of the aboriginal natives has been 
accelerated from the known fact of their being incapacitated to 
give evidence in our courts of law. I have frequently had to 
deplore, when applied to by the Aborigines for justice in cases of 
aggression committed on them by white men, or by those of 
their own race, my inability to do so in consequence of their legal 
incapacity to give evidence. It were unreasonable, therefore, 
under such circumstances, to expect the Aborigines would re- 
spect, or repose trust and confidence in the Protectors, or submit 
to the governance of a department unable efficiently to protect 
or afford them justice. Nor is it surprising they should com- 
plain of being made to suffer the higher penalties of our law, 
when deprived (by legal disability) of its benefits. Little diffi- 
culty has been experienced in discovering the perpetrator where 
the blacks have been concerned, even in the greater offences, 
and hence the ends of justice would have been greatly facilitated 
by aboriginal evidence. It is much to be regretted the Colonial 
Act of Council on aboriginal evidence was disallowed.” 
2 K 2 
