drained and converted to use, and all that is noxious is swept away. But in the reclamation of soil inhabited by human beings there can be no wholesale sweeping away. Human life is sacred; it must be preserved, however rudimentary the stage of organization; and, after due tolerance for primitive habits, the duty of the superior race is to aid the inferior in the course of its evolution. That evolution, to be sound and healthy, must, following the dictates of Nature, be of slow growth. Unnatural development of the human species creates the same sort of impression as is formed in the mind of the cultivator at the sight of a spurious and weedy plant—the genus does not commend itself for propagation.
The principal elements of racial contact under the circumstances which excite controversy are to be found in questions arising out of the land formerly enjoyed in extenso by the aboriginals, their settlement upon it, and their relations to the superior race. As these issues constitute the matter upon which Colonies and parties will contend in the preliminary effort towards a common understanding prior to federation, it is well to examine more closely some of the features.
A glance at the history of the early condition of the South African aboriginals as a whole reveals them as enjoying large tracts of land upon which they lived in community; that is to say, they were a pastoral people raising their flocks and herds on one commonage, and cultivating scraps of land for food wherever they were immune from the ravages of powerful enemies or marauders. They lived under the rule of chieftainship, had no religion, and were in the true sense of the word savage. The right to hold and enjoy what they possessed was governed only by the power to do so. The ethics of right and wrong were unknown to them. They had no originality.
Their subjection by European races gradually changed this state of things. Conquerors have all the world over claimed the reward of their prowess and sacrifices,
