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.
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