AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3829, 2 August 1927, Page 35

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES.

PROBLEMS OF TRAINING. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, July 22. “What shall we do with our aborigines?” This question, i- some form or other, is continually under discus"-' -i by newspapers, Parliaments, and public societies, and despite nil wcll-me. ting efforts t-o alleviate “black bn.-her's” lot, his numbers are dwindling and his -Hive hunting-grounds becoming fewer. A Northern Territory official who has just returned to Melbourne after several years duty in the territory near Darwin explained some of the difficulties wlrch beset those who try to improve the position of the aborigines. “One of the many problems facing the mission stations whicn are endeavouring to train the aborigines of the north to be self-supporting,” he said, “i-s the tendency of the black to 'go walkabout.’ One i-ission, for instance, cultivates about 30 acres, and the abori gine does a considerable amount of work in lean seasons, when the cattle-owner's food is an inducement for him to stay. But as soon as food is plentiful in the bush, the aborigine declares a holiday and disappears into the such, or in other words ‘go walkabout,’ goes back to his primitive life. It has been suggested that, if the blacks were forced to stay inside a certain area, the young people could be trained more consistently to simple agriculture and afforestation. One reform badly needed is a proper reserve for UlseaseG blacks, such as lepers.” This official declared that one < ' the worst features of the present loose administration in the north was that whites and blacks wore placed in a common gaol. Apart from the hardship inflicted on the whites, this was a foolish way to punish the aborigines, who regarded such a term of imprisonment as “holiday-time.” There they were provided with “good fella tucker, plenty fella tobacca.” Detention, in what the aborigines regarded as a comfortable home, with plenty of food and little exertion, was regarded by thinking white people as no deterrent from evil for the blacks. A separate prison and a separate penal code adapted to_the mental and moral status of the black were needed. “The aborigine,” declared this official, “is the spoiled child of the Commonwealth, and is degraded by two much unthinking kindness.”