AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15518, 28 January 1914, Page 11

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES.

PLEA FOR PRESERVATION. [FROM or/it OWN correspondent.] Sydney, January 21. A plea for the preservation of the remnant of the Australian aborigines that have as yet been untouched by civilisation is made by Dr. Mjoberg, a Swedish scientist. In # letter addressed to the Royal Society of New South Wales, Dr. Mjoberg says that the effects of civilisation have been more severe upon the aborigines of Australia than upon the natives of other countries. "In the southern portion of the continent," he writes, "they?are almost extinct. Only in the central and the inaccessible northern portions of Australia do they live . their true life, although even here the degeneration has plainly spread, threatening them in the near future with a similar fate to that of the aborigines of the now civilised parts. During "my two scientific expeditions to Kimberley, in the north-west, and Cape York, in the east, I have had exceptional opportunities, personally and at close range, to convince myself of this fact. "The Australian aboriginal of the stone age, one of the oldest and most interesting races on earth, will in the' near future be a thing of the past. Only extraordinary and rational measures can save the not yet degenerated Temnants from the sad fate of the Tasmanian natives. On Mornington Island, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, the natives still live untouched by white civilisation. They are living the free and undisturbed life of their ancestors, governed by their own unwritten laws and strict morals, the latter even surpassing those of the whites. I do not hesitate i to say that the establishment of a mission station there, as is contemplated, will be a death-blow to the aborigines—that the hitherto happy blacks will be changed into the same repelling and pitiable type which one only too often observes in different parts of the continent. I ask, ' Will this be permitted to happen without a warning voice being raised? Is it not wrong to thus degenerate the happy aborigines by means of civilisation 1 No matter how honest the intention may be, there is no -getting, away from the results that have followed civilising efforts everywhere else. Cannot this one spot be tabooed? Is it too much to ask that the aborigines might be allowed to live in this .one spot the simple life of their forefathers without deteriorating?"