THE ABORIGINALS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 6

THE ABORIGINALS

LOT NOT HAPPY ONE

TREATMENT CRITICISED

"AKIN TO SLAVERY"

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, May 17.

The treatment- of Australian aborigines in the course of the white settlement in the Inland and more remote areas of the continent has been widely discussed during the last few years, and recently two striking contributions have been made by medical men. Dr. R. M. Crookston, of Sydney, returning from a visit to North Queensland, said that aborigines are doomed to degradation and death, and the conditions under which they are employed in Queensland were akin to slavery. Dr. Duguid, Moderator of the Presbyterian Assembly in South Australia, addressing that body, referred to "the wretched system of native camps" and "the starvation allowances given to natives." "The aborigines are rapidly disappearing as a race," said Dr. Crookston. in his statement. "They are completely de-tribalised, and are deprived, under an Act designed for their 'protection,' of the most elementary semblance of liberty. They are citizens of no, country. Wherever there is settlement and the land is good enough for whites, it is too good for them. They are collected from their camps, wherever these camps are thought to be inconvenient, and removed to mission stations. They are taken to mission stations in police custody under suspicion of being guilty of small thefts or misdemeanours. "Trial is unnecessary. Probably also it would be useless. They are bad at evidence even in their own defence. They are dying off from tubercular and other diseases. Their once perfect teeth are deplorable. There are beriberi and other food deficiency diseases in their camps. They are driven out of their old hunting grounds on to barren wastes. MONEY THEY NEVER GET. "I believe, the missions are doing their best under difficult conditions— but often with mistaken ideals. The aboriginal is not a farmer and homemaking settler. He has thousands of years of hunting and tribe life behind him. The mission ration is hopelessly insufficient in areas where game is scarce, but it is calculated as part of the natives' food supply. "The system,.of signed labour under which the natives work for a white employer would cause a strike in an allfools' union. He signs on for pocketmoney, 'tucker,' the right to sleep on the premises, and enough clothes—of the cheapest or used variety—to allow him to be publicly decent. In addition, his employer pays 10s a week to be placed to his credit in a trust account. After about 30 years of this job he has about £650 to his credit. The odd money he may have got, over those 30 years, in small extras at Christmas time, stands to his credit when he dies and even afterwards. There are hundreds of thousands of pounds standing to the credit of dead aborigines* It is said to be accumulating for the benefit of the race." "It is difficult to imagine anything further removed from the British idea of justice than the treatment meted out to the natives of Australia in the white man's Court of Law," said Dr. Duguid in his address. "A couple of years ago an aboriginal resented a white man's interference with his lubra, and for his trouble was shot in the head. The white man was found not guilty because he fired in self-defence, but the last time I saw him he was too drunk to see me—and he is still licensed to employ blacks." SPECIAL;DEPARTMENT URGED. Meanwhile, anthropologists and certain societies formed to protect the aborigines' interests are advocating the establishment of a Department of Native Affairs, with a permanent commissioner, for the care and control of aborigines. The Commonwealth Government is honestly and sincerely trying to evolve a system which will be effective in giving justice to the aborigines, but it is faced with a many'sided problem which probably1 will take many years to solve. The belief -that the Australian aborigines are a vanishing race is not supported by figures issued .by the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, which showed that there were 57,771 full-blooded aborigines in Australia in 1921, and 59,719 at the census in 1932. Western Australia has the largest number of full-blooded aborigines, , and the Northern Territory was next highest with 18,777. There were then 13,372 aborigines in Queensland, but only 915 in New South Wales and 50 in Victoria. ;

The number of half-castes in Australia rose from 12,630 in 1921, to 19,196 in 1932.