AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES

Northern Advocate, 19 April 1933, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES

REFORMS SUGGESTED. DR. CILENTO’S INVESTIGATIONS. BRISBANE, Wednesday. Dr. R. W. Cileuto, Commonwealth quarantine officer, after a survey of the health of aborigines in North Queensland, reached the conclusion that the mainland natives are a poor and undernourished group, and only rapidly declining remnants remain. He found a considerable disease problem among the aborigines, and has suggested the establishment of a health clearing station for them at Palm Island. The bad effects of contacts with centres of white population are emphasised in Dr. 'Cilento’s official report to the Home Secretary (Mr E. M. Hanlon). In a covering letter Dr. Cileuto stated that the whole native question needed careful and complete revision. At present, he said, much of the organisation and work were obviously a mere beating of air. The difference between passive control and active development of the natives was poorly apprehended on most stations, while the condition in relation to the scattered natives round towns was in many respects open to grave criticism.

Dr. Cilento said that on the mainland, whore the aboriginal was a hang-er-on, or where, through living under native conditions, white settlement had restricted him to some worthless area or ravine or creek bed, only rapidly declining tribal remnants remained, and these were a standing reflection upon the civilisation that permitted the eondions producing such a situation. In the settlements, the aborigines were commencing to thrive under care and attention. Definitely hopeful 'indications for the aboriginal’s future as an individual and as. an economic asset to Australia were obvious in these localities, and if a rational policy were pursued for a generation the aboriginal problem could be dealt with in Queensland in a way thjjt would rebound to the credit of all -Australians. Dr. Cilento suggested a more liberal food issue, which could only be given by transferring natives to compounds. The stations at present constituted were doing excellent •work, but circumstances prevented this being other than work of a routine character. He considered that the problem should be treated from the point of view of assimilating the native tribes into the populations as useful and economic units, particularly in North Queensland. The first basis upon which such a policy might be initiated was the cleaning up of the aborigines from the point of view of .health, and the Palm Island group was admirably situated to make a clearing station for that purpose.