THE WESTRALIAN ABORIGINES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8809, 10 May 1907, Page 2

THE WESTRALIAN ABORIGINES

A Bisftop’s Indictment. Press Association —Copyright. Perth, May 9.

Bishop Gibney, in a letter to the press, severely criticises the treatment of aboriginals in Westralia. His says his object is to draw attention to the lethargy of the authorities in preventing abuses exposed two years ago. He points out that owing to the land being taken from them and the small amount allowed for their maintenance, the aborigines have been driven to acts of depredation, and. arrest follows. Then commence barbarous practices, exposed often, but in spite of everything permitted to form part of a system that has everything to condemn it; nothing being done to remove the tarnish on the name of the State. The natural supplies of food having disappeared if they kill sheep to save themselves from starvation they must go to prison. If they go into the; territory of other blacks they are speared. They are arrested indiscriminately and often chained one to another and to the nocks of the police horses. They s’Mom escape conviction, and many do not know for what offeneo. They are; imprisoned -for years and kept in chains day and night. Most do not live long after arrest. Treatment of this description to dumb animals would be counted gross cruelty, yet to natives it is claimed to bo what the law demands.