A VANISHING RACE.

Taihape Daily Times, 11 June 1919, Page 6

A VANISHING RACE.

AUSTRALIAN ABO‘_RIG'INALS. ~_PLE_A FOR BETTER TREATMENT. A . SYDNEY, May 21. g A movement has been started in South Australia for the better treatment of the Australian aborigines, who are steadily declining in numbers land deteriorating in health, and now do not number more than 150,000 in all Australia. Attempts to “civilise” the blacks have failed completely. In a few cases, these blacks have been educated and proved capable of practising a profession, but with the mass of them i nothing of that kind can «be done. The New Zealand Maori, not being far re~ moved from the whites, accepts edu~ cation and becomes a farmer, trader, doctor, or politician equal to the European; but the ‘Australian black, being lower in the human scale, simply withers away along the advancing edge of civilisation. I Some bitter things were said at the South Australian meeting, which initiated the movement. The white people had come. killed off the native game, taken the best of the lands, and had left to the blacks the alternatives l of adopting “civilisation” or j going out into the Wilderness -and starving_ ,'.[‘he blacks, Who had formerly lived,‘ free and healthy in the fruitful regions along the coasts. 110 W existed‘ like parasites along the edges of the! towns, getting an allowance from the’ Government and dying like flies from - Nencral diseases. 'J.l=(}'. like all prim—- , itive poeples, were terribly subject to the white men’s diseases. Even the -“Wild” blacks. which now Wander free ihrctigh Central and North Australia,{ ‘are suffering from these plagues. It was suggested that Australia ! should do now what. in common justice ! should have been done early in the ' last century——set aside a wide area of suitable country, where the blacks might live in their native state Without molestation. It would also be necessary new to establish lock hospitals ' for-_ the segregation and treatment of‘ the din.-eased_ ‘ ,

One £>}.BBk(3l', who had wandered ‘through empty Australia, said that the natives about the towns Were a lazy, contented lot. But in the McDonnell Ranges. in Central Auetralasia, he met a. better class of native-s———~smart, keen, and useful with stock. It wet; there that he first actually saw the “Squaw :men”——“komboes” they we-:-re called in ‘the .North—that to say, White men living among black °»vome.~. in what. might be caleld a. patriachal manner. The miners on the Wh-te Range 1126 quite a large staff of gi 1.: zmd blackzfellows. They helped the wh’yes in +h- mines, 91-.0. ocaesil-rually. when liquor ariv;-d. they nu:--_--.3 their white lords through the pangs of a very severe recover-’. 1-me knew J 10 case. in thrse isolwed "-istriets pf the whites having l'l'€af‘L(l the blar.'s_,, Cl-uvily.