AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES

Taranaki Daily News, 21 September 1931, Page 12

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES

TRIBES DYING OUT. PLEA FROM A MISSIONARY. Sydney, September 6. The work of looking after the aborigines in Arnhem Land and Central Australia should be a national task, and not just one for the Government, according to the Rev. A. J. Dyer, a missionary who has just returned from the Alligator River. Mr. Dyer was referring to a statement made by Professor J. B. Cleland recently, that probably only a few more generations of Australian aborigines would survive, and that the race was in need of proper care and attention. “In isolated parts of Central Australia," said Mr. Dyer, “the death rate has increased, and the blacks have caught the diseases of the white people. If the Government does not act immediately and set apart land for the sole habitation of the blacks, with only the missionaries to advise and attend to them, the now heavily depleted tribes will go out of existence within a very short period.” Mr. Dyer has been in charge of the Church of England Mission Society’s station at Oenpellie, on the Alligator River, for the last six years. He stated that in cases where the natives had been cared for and given nourishment at the mission stations the birth rate had increased. There were many other difficulties besides malnutrition, diseases being the most deadly enemy. Recently a child caught the whooping cough germ, and the infection spread from the east to the west of Arnhem Land, a distance of about 300 miles. There were approximately 2000 to 3000 aborigines situated in that area. The nearest doctor to Oenpellie was at Darwin, 200 miles away. Requests had been made to the Government for the appointment of a doctor, but so far no action had been taken. Mr. Dyer is assisted at the station by his wife, who is a nurse. He suggests that if a doctor were appointed he could travel round the six mission centres by an aeroplane, owned by one of the missionaries at Roper River.