JUSTICE FOR ABO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 129, 2 June 1934, Page 12

JUSTICE FOR ABO.

LAW MODIFIED. MISSIONARIES' ACHIEVEMENT. PUBUCC OPINION STIRRED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 23. Though it is impossible to say what may be the ultimate consequences of the intervention of the missionaries in the Northern Territory murder cases, they can at least congratulate themselves on (seeing some of the immediate fruits of their labours. In the first place, they secured the arrest of aboriginals confessedly guilty of murder without resorting to any kind of force. In the second place, they have brought down upon their heads a torrent of abuse from Mr. Nelson, M.H.K. for the Northern Territory, who makes a practice of attacking the missionaries on all possible occasions, and has thus given them a first-class advertisement. (I may say in passing that the Minister in Charge, being asked if he meant to act upon Mr. Nelson's statements and institute an inquiry, made answer that he was satisfied that there was no ground for. any such action.) And in the third place they may fairly claim credit for an ordinance gazetted since the missionary expedition returned from Caledon Bay, prescribing new procedure in trials for murder in North Australia.

It is now provided that "where an aboriginal native is convicted of murder the court shall not be obliged to pronounce sentence of death, but in lieu thereof may impose such penalty as, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, appears to the court to be just and proper." Further, "for the purpose of determining the nature and extent of the penalty to be imposed, the court shall consider any evidence which may bo tendered as to any relevant native law or custom and its application to the facts of the case, and any evidence which may be tendered in mitigation of the penalty." These new ordinances are to come into force at once, and will apply to the forthcoming trials of the Caledon Bay natives now in Darwin charged with the murder of Constable McColl and of the Japanese fishers. Witnesses Who Walked Away. These regulations should appeal to all who can appreciate the childish simplicity of these primitive people and the folly of attempting to enforce British law against them in the ordinary way. A curious incident lately reported from Darwin illustrates clearly their childlike ignorance and the difficulty of dealing with them by civilised methods. Some natives had come up from Caledon Bay with the missionaries to give evidence about the murder of the Japanese. When the confessed murderers were shut up, these witnesses seem to have thought that nothing more was required of them, and they left Darwin, apparently intending to return to their own country on foot. Probably after their detention they felt inclined for their periodic "walk about," an impulse which tho abo. often finds quite irresistible. They were intercepted by the police after going some distance, and were taken back to Darwin. But it would obviously be absurd to penalise them as absconding witnesses defying the authority of the court. "Murders Caused by White Men." However, public opinion throughout Australia is now deeply 6tirred in favour of justice for the abo.; and for this the churches and the missionaries are largely responsible. The Rev. H. Warren, who led tho missionary expedition to Caledon Bay, is now back in Melbourne, and he has not hesitated to express his own convictions about the merits of the cases now before the Courts of the Northern Territory. "If tho Caledon Bay blacks are murderers," he said in Melbourne ci few days ago, "doing what they did to protect their 'families, homes and rights, then 'every man who left Australia for the Great War to protect the same interests was at heart a murderer." In the same spirit Mr. T. E. Rofe. president of the Council of Churches here, recently declared: "Most of the murders committed by aboriginals have been caused by white men. The natives will do no harm, unless harm is done to their women. They avensre the wronjr, and anyone of us would do the same." It is evident that there is a widespread desire for more intelligent and sympathetic dealing with the abos. in the future to blot out the memory of the deplorable past.