NORTH AUSTRALIAN NATIVES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22823, 6 March 1936, Page 8

NORTH AUSTRALIAN NATIVES

TO HAVE OWN POLICE FORCE REFORMS TO SAVE DYING RACE (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, February 27. Creation of a native constabulary in North Australia is regarded by the Department of the Interior as the most important step taken on behalf of aborigines in recent years. The force is part of new proposal's for Northern Territory aborigines' welfare and to attempt to save what is regarded as a dying race. It is proposed, to base the system on the native constabulary organisation in New Guinea and Papua which has proved a striking success. A career in the native police is eagerly sought by the New Guinea natives, and admission to the force is regarded as a great step up in personal status and importance. The North Australian constabulary should bo able to maintain constant touch with the myall or nomadic blacks without white intervention, and provide a useful and desirable career for the more intelligent and adaptable yonng men of the territory tribes. Young men will be selected from the tribes by members of the territory police who will be instructed to watch for promising types. The men so recruited will be sent to Darwin for a epecial course of training and will then go on field duty under the personal supervision of a white officer.

The new position of patrol officer to take personal charge of the nomadic tribes in the south-west of the territory is regarded officially as another important step. The patrol officer will he a man with anthropological attainments, but he will be more of an administrator and an official than a scientist. The area in the south-west of the Northern Territory, little settled by whites but with large numbers of. aborigines, will be the care of this special officer, who will be attached to the aborigines' branch of the Administration. He will largely replace the present police patrol. lie will educate the natives as to the seriousness of crime and the penalties for offences. The police patrol will be used only when it is necessary to make arrests and to impress on natives that they are stil' liable to receive a visit from a constable. The patrol officer will require a know ledge of native languages and customs and of bush-craft. No charge will In laid against natives if tribal laws ami natives only are involved until the Ghir Protector of Aborigines or his representative has been consulted.