VANISHING ABORIGINES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 19, 23 January 1913, Page 8

VANISHING ABORIGINES

■•"■"' *» DYING OF KINDNESS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, 17th January. In a few years tihie the Victorian aboriginal will in all probability have become extinct. In a paper read at the Science Congress, Mrs. Robartes pointed out that one of the causes of the great mortality was the mistaken idea that the habits of a nomadic* and wild people could be changed. The second cause was the contact of the natives "with unscrupulous whites." As was known, tuberculosis had also made great inroads amongst them. The aboriginal mode of dress did not please the white settlers, and so the natives were com|>elled to conform to the European fashion. Coughs and colds soon came among them, and they came to stay and settle. Our of kindness again, comfortable houses were built for them,, but when they walked into their homes they, closed the door behind them, closed the windows, stuck some rags into the ventilators, some clothes under the crack of the door, and sat before a huge fire. They did not understand thaf fresh air was needed as much as food and water. They Were not capable of grapsing - the .laws off clean -and healthy living, and that was Avhy tuberculosis was so pvcvsvlent among them. They had seen ho many die t>f " coughs " that they had settled into an acceptance of that deadly disease. They were too ignorant to live under the present conditions; They were dying fast, surrounded by medical help, scientific and kindly . aid, • and advice given v over- and over again. ' ' Complete isolation of the bla«k race would probably have saved them. Nothing else would.

Mr. Watt, the Victorian Premier, speaking in Melbourne last week, said that in future, if he were allowed to do all . he wished," he would advocate" elective Ministers. The system, if it followed the lines of the Swiss Constitution, with the necessary alterations to adapt it to Australian conditions, would, he believed, preserve the inherent advantages of responsible government without those dislocating influences which sometimes made themselves felt under the present method. Ifc would be idle, however, for an individual politician to try" and push a question of that port far ahead. If he did, he would soon find himself crying in the wilder- , jaws— a lo.ud, jahrill .crjr. " J