Page 33279606

• □alias□known_astranscriptline 92

  have known as many as twenty-seven head

SHALL WE ADMIT THE BLACKS
To the Editor of the Port Denison Times.
SIR--In his No. 3 communication Mr. Crow
characterises my former letter as "anony-
mous," "scurrilous," and "ungrammati-
cal." These are hackneyed terms with all
newspaper correspondents, and being whol-
ly used as taunt and devoid of argument.
With regard to the first of these, I would
ask what the term he applies to his publica-
tions if they are not "anonymous". He
says, "the name of the writer of these
papers is no secret," &c. Now I venture
to differ from him, and also to assert that
on the appearance of his No. 2 no three
persons in this part of the Kennedy know
the real author. As to the second charge
of "scurrility," I would ask the same
question. He has denounced (virtually)
every station resident of the Kennedy as
murderers and ravishers. He makes no
distinction. They are indiscriminately ac-
cused of the worst crimes in our penal code
—accused of "murdering the blacks and
violating their wives," "tying two gins to-
gether, so that one bullet would kill both,"
&c., &c.; and these, too, on the autho-
rity (!!!) of "discharged hands" and "hos-
pital patients." Doubtless from the same
source he has acquired the use of the word
"He." Granted that grammatical errors
may exist in my letter, his opportunities
of acquiring correctly the English tongue
may have been greater than mine; never-
theless that does not strengthen his posi-
tion or weaken mine.
In his No. 3 article Mr. Crow wishes it
to appear that his object on the whole has
been a desire to educate the aboriginal
children. Had he done so in the first place
he would have made many friends, able
and willing to give him every assistance in
that work. Now, I ask, has he done so?
Is there a word in either the first or second
article to lead the public to believe that
his object? Are they not, on the contrary,
a constant tirade of abuse against the
squatters and the Native Police?
It is not locally we must look for the
evil consequences of these publications.
Here all those interested in the welfare of
the North and having large stakes therein
are fully aware of the facts, far more so
than the promulgator of the calumnia derived
from such a questionable source as
"discharged hands," &c. It is from a
distance the effects are to be apprehended.
We want capital and capitalists to save us
from impending ruin. The question is,
therefore, will capitalists embark their cash
or join a community such as we are repre-
sented, and that too by one whose calling
would point him out as a reliable autho-
rity!
Admitting that blacks have been shot by
the squatters and others, but only so far
as to protect their property and make
them masters of the soil—which to a great
extent is admitted as justifiable by the
other side—I will proceed to furnish a few
instances wherein the blacks have merited
their punishment. Between Port Mackay
and Cleveland Bay there are some twenty
cattle and two or three sheep stations.
These latter have not suffered in the same
rate as the former from the inroads of the
blacks, if I except the Ben Lomond sta-
tion; the shepherd murdered there, and
the subsequent wanton destruction of 400
sheep, is too fresh in the memory of your
readers to require further comment. The
other sheep stations have also lost shep-
herds and sheep by the same ruthless
hands. Some of the cattle stations too
have suffered more than others, and I will
assert without fear of contradiction that
fifteen out of these twenty cattle stations
have lost equivalent to their annual in-
crease, and some even more. One station
in this district lost in numbers actually
counted two hundred head in one year. I
have known as many as twenty-seven head
killed in one night by one party of blacks,
and I have frequently known from six to
fourteen head of cattle killed by one mob
of blacks in twenty-four hours. The esti-
mated loss on one of our largest stations
was over one thousand last year. This is
not all the injury sustained by these
"murderers," &c. From the constant ha-
rassing the cattle were driven off their
proper runs, and it was a work of months
to collect them, and then only to be dri-
ven off again; the consequence was that
the cattle became poor, were neither fit
for the butcher, the boiling pot, nor even
for station use. Need I dwell on these
calamities? Need I point out those who
have been ruined by these disasters? And
need I attempt further to justify the
squatters in the steps taken to stay these
outrages? To say that the blacks were
driven to these acts from "starvation" is
simply untrue. A visit to any of their
encampments will show that their natural
food is immeasurably abundant, not with-
standing that since the "letting in" move-
ment was commenced the blacks are con-
fined to far more limited hunting grounds
than they possessed prior to the present
year.
Having said so much for the squatters I
may be allowed to say a few words in be-