AUSTRALIAN BLACKS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21639, 3 November 1933, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN BLACKS

ALLEGED ] LL-TREATMENT INVESTIGATION PENDING CONDUCT OF MISSIONS By telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received November 2. 10.15 p.m.) CANBERRA. Nov. i The federal Government has agreed to investigate charges made against the administration of the Roper .River mission of brutal ill-treatment of aborigines. Mr. 11. Cr. Nelson, the Northern territory's representative in Parliament., outlined charges against the former superintendent, since ho was dismissed respecting alleged brutality and immorality concerning native women. He said the result was a keen desire on the part of the natives for revenge and general dissatisiaction with the manner in which aboriginal missions in the Gulf territory are conducted. A deputation ironi the Association for the Protection of the Native .Races waited upon the Federal Minister of tho Interior, Mr. J. A. Perkins, on May ;i(), and alleged that conditions of slavery existed among the Australian natives in the Northern Territory and elsewhere, n One speaker said: "We are signatories to an agreement against slavery, yet we have in reed labour at present in Australia. Fpon payment of a fee of .C2 white men go out and bring in blacks at tho point of the pistol." Another speaker said: "Fully per cent ot the murders by aborigines of men ot other races are caused by interiereneo with the women of the blacks," In .June the British Commonwealth League at its conference in London fully dis cussed the position of .Australian aborigines. After a two days' debate the delegates passed a resolution appealing to Australian women's societies to combine in directing the attention of the Governments to "the conditions akin to slavery under which dctrihalised aborigines and half-castes are living." Thcso conditions were alleged to include infant betrothal, natives lending their wives in exchange for material gain, and the marriage of polygamous husbands to girls who sometimes were Christians. The Federal Government was urged to provide a special department to deal with aboriginal offences. The Rev. John .Jones, ex-chairman of the Australian Board of Missions, declared there was truth in messages from Australia to the Daily Herald alleging the kidnapping of native women by Japanese. He said this long-standing custom was increasing owing to tho spread of Japanese intluence in the areas affected. Officials in Canberra described the allegations of the Commonwealth League as to conditions among aborigines in Australia as absurd. They said the Government's policy was to preserve the aborigines in every way possible. The chief protector of the aborigines was vested with wide powers to supervise the moral and material welfare of full-blooded natives and halfcastes. A writer who is an authority on the subject spiritedly denied the allegations. He said native men were legitimately employed in many capacities and never were slaves. There was no illegal recruiting.