With the
spade the ground, and had planted and reaped more than one acre of maize,
one acre of potatoes, and half an acre of melons, besides preparing
ground for the ensuing year. On the Murray River native shepherds and
stock-keepers have hitherto been employed almost exclusively, and have
been found to answer well. Most of the settlers in that district have one
or more native youths constantly living at their houses.
In concluding an account of the present state and prospects of the
Aborigines and of the efforts hitherto made on their behalf, I may state
that I am fully sensible that to put the schools upon a proper footing
and to do away with the serious disadvantages I have pointed out as at
present attending them, or to adopt effective means for assembling,
feeding, or instructing the natives in their own respective districts
would involve a much greater expenditure than South Australia has
hitherto been able to afford from her own resources; and I have therefore
called attention to the subject, not for the purpose of censuring what it
is impossible to remedy without means; but in the sincere and earnest
hope that an interest in behalf of a people who are generally much
misrepresented, and who are certainly in justice entitled to expect at
our hands much more than they receive, will be excited in the breasts of
the British public, who are especially their debtors on many accounts.
I am aware that the subject of the Aborigines is one of a very difficult
and embarrassing nature in many respects, and I know that evils and
imperfections will occasionally occur, in spite of the utmost efforts to
prevent them. No system of policy can be made to suit all circumstances
connected with a subject so varied and perplexing, and especially so,
where every new arrangement and all benevolent intentions are restrained
or limited, by the deficiency of pecuniary means to carry out the object
in a proper manner. Already the subject of apprenticing the natives, or
teaching them a trade, has been under the consideration of the
Government, but has been delayed from being brought into operation by the
want of funds sufficient to carry the object into effect. It is intended,
I believe, to make the experiment as soon as means are available for that
purpose.
My duties as an officer of the Government having been principally
connected with the more numerous, but distant tribes of the interior, I
can bear testimony to the anxious desire of the Government to promote the
welfare of the natives.
I have equal pleasure in recording the great interest that prevails on
their behalf among their numerous friends in the colonies, and the
general kindness and good feeling that have been exhibited towards them
on the part of a large proportion of the colonists of Australia.
