The Romance of a Pro-Consul: Being the Personal Life and Memoirs of the Right Hon. Sir George Grey, K.C.B.Milne, James
History
The Romance of a Pro-Consul: Being the Personal Life and Memoirs of the Right Hon. Sir George Grey, K.C.B.
Milne, James
Grey, George, Sir, 1812-1898
'You see the difficulty,' Sir George pointed out, 'as one that is
necessarily present with regard to all savage races. But it has its cure,
which I put into practice, namely, to provide males and females with an
equally good education. Especially, I mean a technical education, the
learning of some trade or art, for that was all important. Natives, on
leaving school, could then make a living by plying among the Europeans
the industry they had learned. Should a native learn shoemaking, he could
find a wife in a girl trained to domestic service. Such a couple were not
compelled to return to their own people, and they were independent of the
Europeans. It was lifting a race by its two halves, these being essential
to each other, not leaving one of them behind.'
Next, a picture in black and white. It wandered into the gallery of Sir
George's Pro-Consulship in South Australia. At the entrance to Spencer's
Gulf lies an island, on which a fortuitous little colony had established
itself. The colonists were mostly escaped convicts, from the penal
settlements of Australia and Van Diemen's Land, or sailors who had
deserted their ships. The men killed the seals which frequented the
island, trading in their skins with vessels that now and then called for
the purpose.
'I had never judged it my business,' Sir George spoke of this matter, 'to
interfere with those sealers. They kept the peace among themselves, and
did not come into contact with the settlement at Adelaide. Indeed, they
had some form of justice, under which a member who did anything wrong,
was transported for a time to a smaller neighbouring island. There he
could live on oysters of a sort, and on fish caught with lines supplied
to him. It was being sent to Coventry, new style, including oysters,
which, like all delicacies, will, I suppose, cause surfeit.
'The chief of this settlement, as he might be termed, had brought a
native woman with him from Van Diemen's Land. He was fairly educated, not
without considerable power of reasoning, and I had repeated talks with
him. Most of his companions had Australian black women living with them,
and there was a story that these had been taken by force from the
mainland. The natives of Van Diemen's Land were entirely distinct from
the natives of Australia, and the differences have been much debated. The
hair of a Van Diemen's Land woman was curly and woolly, Kaffir like; that
of the Australian woman long and straight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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