[“Correspondence”, The West Australian, Thursday 20 October 1892, page 6]
BISHOP GIBNEY AND THE NOR’-WEST SETTLERS.
TO THE EDITOR.
Sir,
“For every sheep killed by the blacks and for which they were most cruelly treated, and in some cases killed, God had punished the settlers by taking away 100 or more sheep in the drought.” These are the words of Bishop Gibney as reported to his “entire satisfaction.” I have read these words a good many times to satisfy myself of their meaning, inasmuch as they seem to pass a sweeping condemnation upon the whole body of the pioneer settlers, and I should be extremely sorry to mistake the intention of the speaker. However, I can find no other meaning than that every case of sheep-stealing by the blacks in the north has been followed by cruelty on the part of the whites, and that for each such act of cruelty “God had punished the settlers by taking away 100 or more sheep in the drought.” In the long course of this native question, I have become accustomed to the libels of malicious, ignorant, unchristian people, but I certainly was not prepared to hear them uttered by the head in this colony of a powerful Christian Church. When the white people first settled in the North-West, they found the coast tribes in abject terror of their lives, through fear of the inland tribes who used to raid their country, slay all the men they could, capture the women, and often eat the children. All were subject at times to a condition bordering on starvation. In place of these cruel conditions of existence, the white man gave
the black security of life, ample food, and taught him how to earn a better living than he had ever dreamt of previously. The settler protected the weak, fed the hungry, and tended the sick, without any assistance from a priest of any denomination, and yet they are cursed as a body by a Christian Bishop for the sins of a few. If we accept Bishop Gibney as an interpreter of the measurements of Divine punishments, we must be struck with the hard lot of some. One of the heaviest losers of sheep in the late drought is Mr. Marmion, a pillar of Bishop Gibney’s church. To say that his losses are the punishment for cruelty to blacks committed by others, seems hard not to say unjust. Mr. Little again has been a heavy loser; he is, I think, another member of the same Church, and has been held up publicly as a model of humane treatment of the blacks; if he accepts the dictum of Bishop Gibney, a feeling of injustice is likely to arise in him also. It does appear to me extraordinary that any one in this age can accept the doctrine of a direct intervention of Providence as here indicated. If a drought is a direct punishment for sins, a destructive flood must be the same, a north wind which blights the farmer’s crops is another, a frost which destroys the innocent cottagers’ potatoes is another. Surely if you educate a man and teach him to cultivate his reasoning powers, and then tell him that, however innocent he may be, he must be punished for the sins of his neighbour, the natural result would be a rebellions spirit, doubtless atheism. I regret exceedingly having to write in this strain of a gentleman holding the high and sacred office of Bishop. But Bishop Gibney has come to my native land and made sweeping charges (without any reservation) against the pioneers of the north; to sit silent under these charges might be taken as an admission, I therefore write in self-defence. Bishop Gibney has made use of occasions in speaking publicly to show his sympathy with the Nationalist party in his native land. If I take up the records of that land, I find endless reports of cruelties compared with which the worst cases reported from the North-West sink into insignificance, and they are said to have been committed by the Nationalist party. I am not aware that Bishop Gibney has ever condemned these cruelties, and he would probably say that these reports have been greatly exaggerated. This is quite probable, and may be taken as a sound reason or doubting the truth of alleged cruelties there. Such as there may have been (?) are condemned by the settlers. I notice a short letter on this subject signed “Quabba,” which is interesting, not for what it contains bearing on the subject, but for the opportunity it offers of analysing the character of an individual from his writing, without having the remotest idea of who the individual may be. And this is what I find—the beginning and the end show a desire to say something nasty of Mr. McKay, who wrote in self-defence under a mis-apprehension—this indicates malice and injustice, the second paragraph shows a desire to flatter and admire the Bishop; this indicates sycophancy, toadyism. Then comes a condemnation of an alleged desire to “stir up strife,” yet offering to become “an important factor” in so doing; this indicates vanity and hypocrisy. His reference to “other parts of the world” indicates ignorance. Finally, signing himself “Quabba” (good) betokens self-righteousness; the absence of his own name exhibits cowardice, and the whole breathes of malice and uncharitableness.
Yours, etc.,
CHARLES HARPER.