the aggressor, and occasionally proved his superiority. The Australian, like the deer, shrank from a contest with a newcomer whose power he felt and whose dominion he did not ⚫ venture to dispute. But the angry bison is no more able than the timid deer to avert the inevitable end. The pale of civilisation thrusts it farther and farther back into the everlessening solitudes.

So it was in Australia. The great island was inhabited by an inferior race to that which in New Zealand had disputed the progress of the British on many a battlefield, and the wretched natives had no chance of withstanding the white man. At first, indeed, they only suffered slightly from the white man's advent. Australia was so vast, the new-comers were so few, that the natives, withdrawing slightly into the interior, could still hold their own. Even in those days, however, the readiness with which the men took to drink and the unchaste habits of the women had their influence for evil. But as the British increased in numbers the process of destruction became much more rapid. The white man wanted the native's land; the native, perhaps, wanted the white man's cattle. The native was, in fact, in the way; and justice, which was administered by the British, did not penetrate far into the bush. Even, indeed, if justice had been present with her scales, it is not clear how she could have affected the inevitable end. Native cattle-stealers were not practically amenable to the ordinary courts, and the machinery of civilisation had no terrors in solitudes which it could not penetrate. The colonist had, therefore, no choice but to submit to the loss of his flocks, or to punish the thieves. When savage races are as dangerous as wolves, the men who suffer from their depredations are apt to treat them like wolves, and when the shepherd finds a wolf in his neighbourhood he does not usually inquire whether the animal has been guilty of sheep-stealing. Thus, unhappily, in some cases natives were killed with as little ceremony as rabbits are shot by a country gentleman in our own time, or as the Irish were shot by the English in Plantagenet times. It was practically true in Australia a few years ago, as

it was literally true in Ireland some centuries ago, that the killing of a native by an Englishman was not murder.

In Australia this unhappy story is still incomplete. The natives are not yet quite extinct, and the process of extinction is still going on. In the smaller and neighbouring island of Tasmania extirpation has been more easy and therefore more rapid, and the fate of native races may best be understood by a short summary of what has occurred in that colony.

When the British first settled in Tasmania at the beginning of the century, it is supposed that there were 7000 natives in the island. The new settlers were wisely instructed to treat the natives kindly. But kindness was never exercised, was perhaps never possible. An officer in charge of convicts saw a party of natives hovering around him. The apologists of the native race say, and cite many good reasons for saying, that they were attracted by curiosity and had no hostile intentions. A British officer, with only a small force under his command and a large body of convicts in his charge, could not perhaps be expected to reason on their appearance. He thought the safer course was to fire on the natives and to drive them away by bloodshed. But the circumstance was none the less unfortunate. At the outset the natives were taught to associate the new-comers with defeat and outrage. They were naturally disposed to meet slaughter with slaughter. The conditions of the colony gave them occasional opportunity for retaliation. The authorities were compelled to send hunting expeditions into the bush for food. These hunting parties, consisting of isolated individuals, afforded the natives an opportunity for vengeance. But, when a hunting party was thus attacked by savages, the ordinary law of self-preservation compelled the British to punish the tribe. If only one white man fell the hunters had an excuse-perhaps a sufficient excuse -for destroying some blacks. Authority was thus powerless to repress murders. British newspapers openly advocated the extinction of the natives, and the colonists were perhaps tempted to adopt the advice too literally. "The smoke of a fire," to quote the words of another

VOL. VI.

2 A

work, "was the signal for a black hunt. The sportsmen would discharge their guns, then rush towards the fires and sweep away the whole party. The wounded were brained, the infant cast into the flames, the musket was driven into the quivering flesh."1 Blood begat blood, murder murder. Despite the orders of Secretaries of State and the exertions of Governors, the hunting parties continued. In 1834 a few hundred individuals, the sole survivors of the 7000 persons who had been the possessors of the land only thirty years before, were moved to a little islet in the neighbourhood, in the vain hope of prolonging the existence of their race. There, however, within sight of their previous home, they languished and died, till at the present time no single specimen of the wretched race exists on the earth.

Transportation.

While the gradual extermination of the native races was proceeding, another question was approaching solution. Some account has already been given of the steps taken to terminate transportation. In Britain it was condemned as a costly and ineffective punishment; in Australia it was denounced as a grave social plague. As the population of New South Wales increased, the immigrants saw that the taint of the convict rested on the colony. As the men seeking work grew to manhood, they found that the abundance of convict labour diminished the value of their own toil. And when the foremost men of the colony, conscious of growing strength and increasing prosperity, aspired to obtain free institutions, they were roundly told that it was "idle to make any effort for the establishment of free institutions in New South Wales so long as transportation to it continued." 2

It consequently happened that, both in the colonies and 1 West's History of Tasmania, quoted in Rusden's Australia, vol. i. p. 624. If it should be thought that these atrocities were due to the depraved society of Tasmania, the reader should compare the account in the text with the recent treatment of the natives in Queensland. See the account in ibid., vol. iii. pp. 231-247. He should recollect, however, that Mr. Rusden is the apologist of the native races, and, in relating their misfortunes, is apt to underrate the difficulties of the colonists.

2 See Charles Buller's remark in ibid., vol. ii. p. 184.

The aboli

at home, a strong feeling arose against the continuance of transportation; and in 1839 Russell, as Colonial Minister, took the bold step of declaring that, from a given date in 1840, transportation to New South Wales should cease. The transportation system, however, could not be destroyed at a blow. It was impossible to avoid sending prisoners abroad till fresh arrangements were made for their proper custody at home; and Russell accordingly, while abolishing transportation to New South Wales, retained Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island as penal settlements. tion of transportation. This reservation partly diminished the value of the boon. The friends of transportation—and even in New South Wales the vicious system had its friends-complained that the colony was deprived of cheap labour, and that it was not freed from the convict taint. Convicts still remained in the colony, working out their sentences; convicts were certain to filter into it through other penal settlements. If these disadvantages were to remain, why should employers of labour be deprived of the advantage of cheap convict labour? A public meeting was held at Sydney, and a petition was signed by 4000 persons, objecting to the abolition of transportation.1

Views such as those which prompted meeting and petition. were not long held even among the more vicious classes in the colony. But the policy which Russell had adopted caused nevertheless grave anxiety to his successors. Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island were flooded with convicts, till it was obvious that they could receive no more.2 Norfolk Island was a small place, unable to make its voice heard; but Van Diemen's Land was a large and increasing settlement, capable of ensuring a hearing for its complaints. Its inhabitants declared that, in consequence of the cessation of transportation to New South Wales, they themselves had been flooded with convicts. Sixteen thousand convicts had

1 Rusden's Australia, vol. ii. pp. 126-130.

2 67,655 convicts were sent to Van Diemen's Land from 1803 to 1853. Ibid., p. 556.

been introduced into the island in four years; and the free population, staggered and alarmed at this vast immigration of vice, was leaving the colony. Van Diemen's Land, therefore, addressed its remonstrances to the Colonial Office and to Parliament,1 and prayed that the plague might be stayed. Prayer and remonstrance seemed equally reasonable, and unofficial England conceived that they should at once be attended to. But official England regarded the matter from quite another standpoint. It had-whether the colonists liked the fact or not to deal annually with some thousands of convicts. After all that had been written, it was not easy in the fifth decade of the present century to see what better means could be devised for their disposal than transportation to a colony. It was true that penal settlements had been the constant scenes of abuse. But abuses in the management of prisons were not confined to colonies, and it was reasonable to suppose that prison management in Australia was at least as capable of reform as prison management at home. It was true that there was something shocking in flooding the pure soil of a new colony with a vicious stream of hardened criminals; but, on the other hand, official England remembered that Australia would never have been settled if it had not been for convicts. The emigrants had come to the convicts, the convicts had not been brought to the emigrants; and the colonies had been sustained and fostered by the vast expenditure which the mother-country had incurred in fitting them as receptacles for criminals.

So spoke or argued official England. Yet even official England was compelled to admit that the treatment of Van Diemen's Land was incapable of defence. There were men, however, who thought that the condition of Van Diemen's

1 In presenting the petition referred to in the text to the Lords, Lansdowne said that the population of the colony from 1834 to 1840 had increased from 12,000 to 40,000 persons; the cultivated area from 25,000 to 124,000 acres; the shipping from 142 tons to 141 vessels; the imports from £62,000 to £988,000. In the four years during which the 16,000 convicts had been landed only 700 persons had entered, while 2000 had left the colony. Hansard, vol. lxxxiv. p. 480.