91 out-stations robbed of stores, shepherds speared, and servants so frightened as to be unable to discharge their duties. The Squat ters in their meetings condemned the Protectorate, and recom mended the establishment of Land Reserves and Provision Depots for the Blacks, and the formation of Missions among them. The Government was feeble and distant, and Gazette proclamations were ill supported by Police arrangements, for protection either for Blacks or Whites. But the times are changed. We are the many ; they are the few. We have remorselessly occupied the whole of their territory, and they wander as intruders and strangers. NATIVE RIGHTS AND BRITISH RULE. The Aborigines were held by our government to have no pro prietorship in the soil ; and yet, Mr. Eyre writes, “ Each male has some portion of land of which he can point out the boundaries. A female never inherits.” Governor Gawler, speaking of the laud, says, “ over which these Aborigines have exercised distinct, defined and absolute right of proprietary and hereditary possession.” Dr. Lang adds, “ Particular sections and portions of these districts are universally recognized by the natives as the property of the individual members of these tribes.” Mr. Protector Parker asserts, “ Every family had its own locality.” Dr. Thomson told the Sydney Council, that the native “ considers the land as his own : indeed every family had its separate portion.” The anomalous condition of the Blacks under our rule is thus described by Count Strzelecki. “ The late act declaring them naturalized as British subjects, has not only rendered them legally amenable to the English criminal law, but added one more anomaly to all the other enactments affecting them. This naturalization excludes them from sitting on a jury, or appearing as witnesses, and entails a most confused form of judicial proceedings ; all which, taken together, has made of the Aborigines of Australia a nondescript caste, who, to use their own phraseology, are neither white nor black.” The New South Wales legislature passed a law
