BLACK DEFENDED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 151, 27 June 1936, Page 10

BLACK DEFENDED.

NATIVE " OUTRAGES." EUROPEANS MUCH TO BLAME. FUTURE OF ABORIGINES. Defence of.the Australian aborigine in regard to stories of "outrages" which come from tlie Commonwealth from time to time is made by Professor A. P. Elkin, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, who passed through "Auckland to-day by the Mariposa. The professor is going to attend a conference on anthropology and native education which is to be held in Honolulu. "The story of the aborigine in the past has been bad, or rather the European part in it," said the professor, who is a recognised authority on the social life of the Australian .blacks. Outrages, he said, had been rather against them than against the white man. The trouble had lain with what in Australia were called "dogger men," that is, white men who had "gone native." They had gone into the • wild country of Australia, where the aborigines lived, in search of dingo scalps. They had taken them from the natives, refusing to pay for them, and also had caused trouble with the native women* The natives had retaliated in some cases, but the origin of the trouble was not with them. Australia, lie added, had a lot to learn in the treatment of the natives, while public opinion required to . be much changed. A colour prejudice was much in evidence. , However, opinion was gradually changing; and the Govermncnc w-as taking a more sympathetic view. New Scheme by, Federal Government. To speak of, a Government view, lie admitted, presented difficulties. There were nix Governments in the Commonwealth, • the States and the Federal. However, the Government was showing evidence of more enlightened visHvs. It was instituting two patrols in the; Northern Territory with some ;knowledge of the aborigines, to take the place of the police who had had no knowledge of them. There would also be special courts, where the aborigines would be tried for offences. This was the same system as was in force m Papua and New Guinea. The States of Western Australia and Queensland had each their own schemes, which were meeting with some success.

He did not think that the future of' the. aborigine lay in protecting them : through settling in definite reserves. For - one thing, the aborigine for centuries had been a nomad, and that was ''ptir£ of his racial experience. For aiiother, tliers was plenty of room for the to ■ wander in the back country of Australia. lie was sceptical as to bounds having to be put on the movements' of the natives by any increase- in population. The country, he said, was not suitable even for Japanese. "They could have had it 300 years ago," he said. It was the country for the big companies, whose operations had been helped by fairly efficient native labour. Speaking of the future of the native, lie said that the aborigine, could assimilate some of the European culture, but to what extent their brain capacity -was a handicap he did not know. Their mode of life was another handicap, but the greatest of all handicaps was the racial prejudice that existed in the Commonwealth against them. Those of mixed blood said that the more white blood they had the less they were liked by the white man. | Objects of the Conference. The professor turned to speak of the objects of the conference. It was being organised by the universities of Yale and Hawaii, and was being financed by the Carnegie Corporation. It was to deal with education of the natives in the Pacific. It was not to be a conference in the ordinary sense of the word, but six weeks of actual investigation on the lines of a commission of inquiry. The idea, he said, was to start with the simplest of native peoples, like the aborigines, and to investigate what sort of education suited them and what success or failure the present system had met with. Then a- slightly higher type would be considered, like the Papuan, who was more settled in living habits than the nomadic aborigine. After that would come consideration of peoples whose mode of living was more centralised, and who had chiefs in authority. Then a still more advanced people, like the Philippine Islands natives, would be dealt with. Behind all thought in education should lie the question, what is the goal ultimate? That was compatibility with the civilisation which the white man had brought, and it applied generally to any native education. A syllabus of education, he said, must have some relation to the past life of a given people, to its present interests, and to the finding of a place in a new society. The Australian Government, he said, was sympathetic to these aims. Sir Hubert Murray, Lieutenant-Governor of Papua, was a keen student of new principles, while the Government also actuated the League of Nations in the mandated territory of New Guinea. Professor Elkin has held his present position in the University of Sydney for some three and a half years. He is director of the Australian National Research Council, and is editor of the journal of that body, "Oceania." The council conducts research into anthro- | pological problems in Melanesia, Aus»tralia and New Guinea,