ILL-TREATMENT OF ABORIGINIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13484, 10 May 1907, Page 5

ILL-TREATMENT OF ABORIGINIES.

WEST AUSTRALIAN BISHOP'S

CHARGES.

INJUSTICE AND BRUTALITY. By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright. . (Received May 9, 10.40 p.m.) • -Perth, May 9. Bishop Gibkey (Roman Catholic), in a letter to the press, severely criticises the treatment of the aboriginals in West Australia. He says his object is to draw attention to the lethargy of the authorities in preventing the abuses exposed two years ago. He points out that owing to the land having been taken from them, and) to the small amount allowed for their maintenance, the aborigines have been driven to acts of depredation. Arrest follows, and then commence the barbarous practices that have been exposed often, but in spite of everything are permitted to form part of a system that has everything to condemn it. "Nothing, he says, is being done to remove the tarnish on the name of the State. The natural supplies of food of the natives having disappeared, the natives, if they kill a sheep to save themselves from starvation, must go to prison, and if they go into the territory of other blacks they are speared. When arrested the natives are indiscriminately chained one to another and 'to the necks of • police horses. " They seldom escape conviction. Many of the prisoners do not know for what offence they "are imprisoned for years and kept in chains day and night. Most of them do not live long after arrest. Treatment of this description to dumb animals would be counted gross cruelty, yet as it affects the natives it is claimed to be what the law demands.