I Still Maintain That The Native Has A Right To Expect, And That We Are IN JUSTICE BOUND To Supply

Him with food in any of those parts of the country that we occupy, and to do this, too, WITHOUT

Demanding or requiring any other consideration from him than we have ALREADY received when we TOOK FROM HIM his possessions and his hunting grounds. It may be all very proper to get him to work a little if we can - and, perhaps, that MIGHT follow in time, but we have no right to force him to a labour he is unused to, and WHICH HE NEVER HAD TO PERFORM IN HIS NATURAL STATE, whilst we have a right to supply him with what he has been accustomed to, BUT OF WHICH WE HAD DEPRIVED HIM - FOOD.

If in our relations with the Aborigines we wish to preserve a friendly and bloodless intercourse; if we wish to have their children at our schools to be taught and educated; if we hope to bring the parents into a state that will better adapt them for the reception of christianity and civilization; or if we care about staying the rapid and lamentable ravages which a contact with us is causing among their tribes, we must endeavour to do so, by removing, as far as possible, all sources of irritation, discontent, or suffering. We must adopt a system which may at once administer to their wants, and at the same time, give to us a controlling influence over them; such as may not only restrain them from doing what is wrong, but may eventually lead them to do what is right - an influence which I feel assured would be but the stronger and more lasting from its being founded upon acts of justice and humanity.

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