[“Bishop Gibney and the Nor’-West Settlers”, The West Australian, Tuesday 25 October 1892, page 3]
BISHOP GIBNEY AND THE NOR’-WEST SETTLERS.
TO THE EDITOR.
Sir,—
It is at least some satisfaction to me to find that Mr. Charles Harper had to read my words “a good many times” before they were capable of the interpretation which he gave to them in his letter of the 20th instant viz.:— “a sweeping condemnation upon the whole body of the pioneer settlers” of this colony. I am of opinion, however, that even had I not taken the trouble to explain my meaning by obtaining the insertion in your columns of a leading article in the RECORD of the 13th instant, the majority of unprejudiced people here and elsewhere would have been satisfied that my illustration of cruelty to the blacks necessarily carried with it a reservation in favor of certain settlers. In fact Mr, Harper incautiously contradicts himself upon this point by subsequently inferring that I excepted the cases of Messrs. Marmion and Little—one of whom, he states, is a “pillar” of the Catholic Church and the other, a gentleman who “has been publicly held up as a model of humane treatment of the blacks,” and also a leading Catholic. I may here be permitted to digress from the question at issue, to remind Mr. Harper that he, as a member of the Anglican Synod, is much more closely identified with the section of the Christian church to which he belongs, than is Mr. Marmion as an alleged “pillar” of a Church which excludes lay jurisdiction in matters of faith. And, moreover, that in my condemnation of the treatment of “natives,” I am speaking to a professedly Christian people, and not to “rebellious spirits” ready to develop athiesm from the dogma of “a direct intervention of Providence,” accepted alike by the Church of England and the Catholic Church. If Mr. Harper would accept my advice, I would recommend him to reconcile himself with his own Church on this very matter, for its teaching evidently accords with that of the Catholic Church in, for instance, one of the Litanies of the Book of Common Prayer: “From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence and famine; from
battle and murder and from sudden death, Good Lord deliver us.” There is a very old Book which most Christians regard as the Word of God which says that “by the very things by which a man sinneth, by the same things also he is tormented;” and I would further remind Mr. Harper (if he be susceptible to Christian axioms) that not merely the perpetrators of deeds forbidden by God’s law get punished, but “those also who consent to them who do them.” We are all sufferers, I maintain, from the disasters that have fallen so heavily on the Nor’West settlers, not from participation in the brutalities and maltreatment practised on starving or innocent blackfellows, but (according to the sequence of Christian belief) by our apathy in connection with these events, and a general want of practical sympathy with the sufferings of humankind. As a nation of people cannot be punished in the hereafter, it follows, in the opinion of those who do not possess the “rebellious spirit” of, say a Synoaical “pillar,” that the place of punishment in such a case must be here below—whether by the means of the droughts, floods, north winds or frosts that Mr. Harper instances in his letter or by other means, is altogether beside the question.
As Mr. Harper has thought fit to ignore the whole context of the defence copied into your columns from the Record, contenting himself with harping on certain words to which he gives a too literal meaning; and as he paints the early settlers as ministering angels to the wants of the coast natives particularly, I shall, with your permission, supplement the arguments to which Mr. Harper has not yet replied, by a few more references to the outcome of that “protection” alleged to have been given to the blacks, “without any assistance from a priest of any denomination.” And here it may be as well to deny that I have “cursed as a body” the settlers—Mr. Harper included. The hon. gentleman in making such a statement as that must have been thinking of by gone days when the sensational anathemas of Exeter Hall were pronounced against the settlers of the Crown Colony, at the instance, principally, of a clergyman of his own denomination.
If, as Mr. Harper asserts, the white people in the Nor’-West carried so many blessings to the aborigines in the early days, it is strange indeed that Governor Weld in 1872 was compelled to close an official despatch to the Secretary of State in these words: “Years ago when I was a young colonist, Sir George Gipps, a most distinguished Governor, fought the same battle for justice to the Australian native against the whole force of a powerful squatter aristocracy, and enforced the im- partial administration of the law by direct interference and by measures far stronger as well as I can recollect, than any to which I have yet been obliged to resort. Supported by Her Majesty’s Home Government he inflexibly stood his ground; and as I have taken the same stand I trust that, should I be fortunate enough to receive the same support, my efforts, like his, may not prove unavailing to promote equal justice for all classes of Her Majesty’s subjects in the colony entrusted to my charge.” Does not this extract from an official publication go to show that the aborigines had more to fear from the “protection” of the white man than from the alleged tribal feuds and cannibalism from which Mr. Harper asserts they were rescued? As was asserted by the acting Attorney General of the day, “a squatter was practically Judge, Jury and Executioner” over these black slaves who, it was stated, were “taught how to earn a better living” in the employment of the settlers. The reply to that despatch from the Earl of Kimberley emphasised the existence of the conspiracy against which the Governor had to contend, in these words: “I recognise in the fullest manner the duty which lies upon the Government to spare no pains in repressing any tendency to regard lightly crimes of violence committed by white settlers against the aboriginies; and I entirely approve of your efforts to secure the due punishment of such crimes.” Thus supported, Governor Weld towards the close of his administration summed up his experience of the Native difficulty in this manner: “The Colonial secretary will remember how, on the first bush journey I undertook after entering into office, encamped at sundown under a great red-gum tree, a native, with his arm broken and sorely wounded, came forward and appealed to me for justice, and for the restoration of his wife, forcibly taken from him. The result of that appeal was, that a young European of respectable family and a native in his employ, were put upon their trial, convicted and suffered a term of imprisonment. So my Government commenced. From that day to this with the unanimous, full, and fearless support of my Executive Council (which changed as it has been in personnel, has never changed in spirit), whilst bearing in mind the difficulties and dangers pioneer settlers have to encounter, I have endeavoured to secure justice between man and man regardless of caste and colour.” So much, as an outline, for the far past.
In the article you were good enough to publish for me in your issue of the 15th instant, the restless agitation of a certain, section of settlers during the past six years to have direct control over the blacks and to put in force “effectual means” against them, was dealt with, and I need not therefore recapitulate the evidence to show that behind all this was a spirit of extermination against the “worthless niggers.” Can I be blamed for taking those opinions as fairly representative of the general feeling of the settlers—seeing that the section to which Mr. Harper claims to belong have been silent all along—the ministering-angel section, who, it is asserted, acted the Samaritan towards the Natives? I freely give Mr. Harper credit for humane treatment and generous feeling towards the blacks under his control or in the employ of his Arm at the De Grey and other squatters likewise, but from the picture his letter draws of the past, I must emphatically dissent. Almost the whole force of the settlers in the early days was arrayed against Government, and the voices of such men as Mr. Harper were silent ovor the hideous crimes of the alleged “few” white settlers, just as they are now judging by the representative men who lately have indulged in so much abuse of Sir John Forrest’s attitude in the house last session on the question of increased protection to the squatters against the depredations by the natives on their sheep and cattle. One of the correspondents uncousciously struck the key-note of most of the trouble by saying that there was “no food for the natives” out his way, and he evidentally desired the wholesale clearance of a tribe to Rottnest or the interior of the continent by the Government, at the public expense, and for the benefit of a few.
In September 1890, I landed at Le Grange Bay. When the natives gathered together as night fell, I was surprised to hear the heartrending wail that went up from the crowd. I found, on enquiry, that some of the young men who had been forcibly detained on a pearling boat had been drowned on making an attempt to escape from their captors. They believed they could swim to shore—a distance of about six miles, but only one man reached it and I had a coversation with him. For a long time I believed the story of the employers of native divers, that the blacks went with them willingly, but I afterwards found such was not the case. The Mission Fathers at Beagle Bay having purchased two pearling schooners formerly used in the trade, I was of opinion that when gently used by the missioners and well fed and clothed, they would get to understand that they were working for their own benefit, which on land they did not object to. But the idea had to be abandoned, as the Mission Fathers wrote to me saying that the natives refused to go on board, and thus an industry which would have helped the Mission had to be relinquished. The former contact of the aborigines with pearlers had evidently struck terror into their minds, and so militated against those whose kindness they acknowledged on shore.
The treatment to which aboriginal prisoners have been subjected in “doing time” in Roebourne and Derby for the alleged crime of sheep stealing or desertion would, in the opinion of any witness believing in the earthly justice of an all seeing God, be sufficient of itself to bring a curse upon the country. Sentenced to terms of three, six or twelve months these unfortunate creatures are constantly kept in irons or chains day and night. They work under a tropical sun and blistering heat on the roads, chained by the necks one to each other, and also by the legs. As they sat in that manner breaking stones I saw the blisters on their necks from the heat and working of the chains. And even when the poor wretches fall sick they are not loosed from their manacles but death itself, in many cases, releases them. This is part of what the ministering angels of the North have been doing for the coast tribes and others. What wonder that there is not half the black population around the towns along the North West Coast that existed there when the white settlers took possession of their territory, and with that their native means of living—or when I first visited the coast fourteen years ago? In the main, the civilizing influence of the employing white settler over his “niggers” has been that of the shepherd to a good dog—he is treated well if he works well. They are made useful animals—white labour-saving machines and nothing more, nor can anything more be expected under existing conditions. I have, however, every faith that the present Government will endeavour to remedy many of the evils of the system under which the aborigines suffer, for, as Sir John Forrest put it last session— “there is a screw loose somewhere.”
Finally, Mr. Harper’s allusion to the case of Ireland, by way of analogy, is an unfortunate one. In common with the leaders of the Nationalist Party in Ireland and Australia, I have several times condemned the “atrocities” of the secret societies which were mainly the result of the suppression of open organization by Government in Ireland. Moreover, the few real atrocities in Ireland were those of the weak against the strong, and founded on centuries of misrule. Not so with the white settlers whose deliberate murders in no single instance met with the punishment that invariably overtook the blackfellow convicted of a similar crime against the invaders of his country. I can point to manifesto after manifesto issued by Nationalist leaders against genuine atrocities in Ireland, but I have never yet seen the squatters of this Colony, as a body,or their representatives, do anything but take part against the efforts of the Government to stamp out the wilful and deliberate murders by the alleged “few”, of the original owners of the soil.
Yours, etc.,
+ M. GIBNEY.
The Palace, Perth, October 22, 1892.
AB notes:
Gibney makes a good case, but should probably have ‘pulled his head in’ on this occasion.
ie. he was responding to indignation and might have saved his remarks for another time.
And signing “M. Gibney, The Palace” was probably not a good move either.
