be given until the whole community has a sickening sense of blood-guiltiness in subsidising men (who wear, I suppose, the uniform of her Most Clement and Christian Majesty) to commit wholesale murder. I have been told by more than one black police officer that they loathed their work, and I am sure that those of them who have not been utterly demoralised by their present occupation would gladly hail any change that would be more satisfactory for themselves and likely to result in the amelioration of the race which is being so rapidly exterminated under the present system.—Yours, &c.,
0utis.
—Queenslander, June 12, 1880.
Sir,—I have read the article in your issue of May 1 on the above subject, also the letters of "Humanity" and "R. S." Will you permit an outside resident, and one who has had considerable experience amongst blacks, to give his views on this much-vexed question? What I would wish to show is that your sweeping accusation of unnecessary cruelty by the whites, although it may have been true in a few instances, has by no means been so in general; that the best mode of treatment of the young boys is that now followed—namely, the getting as many as possible to work on the stations; that the best course to pursue with regard to the old blacks is to leave them alone as far as practicable; and that Government interference is only likely to lead to further complications and evil results.
In the first place I allow that the blacks are treated with gross injustice, but the primary and fundamental injustice is the taking of their country. If the whites are to settle and occupy their country, then a certain amount of cruelty and severity is unavoidable, but I maintain that upon the whole they are treated in a most humane manner compatible with the circumstances. You say we treat them like wild animals. Well, to a certain extent their attributes are the same, and must be met in the same manner. For instance, if you take a black or a wild animal, young, each is capable of being domesticated and made useful; but as with the wild animal, so with the blackfellow: if he is brought in when grown up, his master is only safe so long as he inspires fear and respect. When once he ceases to do this, no matter whether he treats them with kindness or harshness, he is no longer safe; in fact, nine-tenths of the outrages I have heard of have originated from blacks who had been treated with special kindness, and allowed too much familiarity, and who, for that very reason, had lost their fear. Where could you find a better example of this than that terrible tragedy on the Nogoa some seventeen years ago—namely, the murder of the Wills family. In that instance the blacks were treated with all the kindness and consideration imaginable. They were allowed in from the first settling of the country, supplied with rations, clothes, and presents of all kinds, and then, when the novelty of the white man's presence, and the natural fear of him had died out, they turned round in the most treacherous and cowardly manner and murdered the whole family. Many instances of the same kind are known to all old Queenslanders, and, as a rule, the victims have been those who have treated the blacks with the greatest kindness. Grown up blacks, at all events, are incapable of appreciating kindness, which they invariably attribute to fear, and the moment they imagine you are frightened their natural desire for killing gains ascendency, and they embrace the first opportunity of gratifying their innate propensities.
Much stress has been laid upon the ravishing of the gins. Now, I have had considerable experience amongst outside blacks, and I have never heard of a single instance of this crime, and I believe that no inducement for the committal of such a crime exists. One of the established customs amongst the aborigines is to lend their women to any chance visitor from a neighboring tribe, and this same custom has invariably been extended to the whites. To give one instance out of many: Early in 1876 a party of friends of mine made a trip to what is now called the Mulligan River, and were obliged to camp at a waterhole already occupied by a large mob of blacks. These had evidently seen no white men before, and their first proceeding, on finding no harm was intended, was to bring over some dozen young gins for the acceptance of the party, and they appeared to be rather incensed at the refusal of the present, this evidently being considered a breach of etiquette.
No doubt it is a fact, and a fact much to be deplored, that the blacks are rapidly becoming extinct. But the true cause of this is, I believe, generally misunderstood. In the bush, away from towns, I do not believe that the mortality is much greater now than it was twenty years ago, if you except those who from time to time are
