ISOLATED GERMAN COMMUNITY.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1918, Page 6

ISOLATED GERMAN COMMUNITY.

IN THE CENTRE OF AUSTRALIA. Sydney, Dee. 18. "Right away in the very centre of Australia, tucked away in a valley of the Macdonnell Ranges, there is a little German community which pursues the even tenor of its way, maintaining an atmosphere purely German, and undisturbed by the clamor of a world at war.

The place is called Hermansburg, and it is a Lutheran mission station. It is 'occupied exclusively by Germans, who are either born in Germany or are of direct German parentage. They have rarely been known to employ a white man of any but German- nationality, and they depend largely for their labor on the natives, who are obtained free tinder the guise of their religion. The station is in charge of a man named Strelow. His chief assistant German, and his stock expert is named Munnehenberg. Ostensibly, the Christianising of the natives is the principal business of the mission station, but cat-tle-breeding holds a foremost place among its worldly activities. As the colony is at the extreme end of the mail route, and at the southern extremity of the Northern Territory, it is rarely visited by other settlers, and very 'little is known about it, even by Government officials. Tt depends for its supplies on Tanunda, a fiercely German little place in South Australia.

1 he land is rent free, because the place is a "religious settlement," and a paternal Government supplies it with a free mail, whereas other settlers have to pay for maiT services. The Central Australian grazier who recently conveyed the foregoing information to the Federal authorities says of Hermansburg's Christianising nctivities:—"These Germans have been in occupation for 40 years, but little or no effect can be seen among the natives who are alleged to have received the blessings of Christianity at their hands. The natives may .be Christians while working for nothing at the mission, but it is quite plain to everyone around that when they leave they 'shed their Christianity with their clothes."

These Germans have consistently refused to respond to Australian patriotic appeals. Just before the war Strelow took his family to Germany to be educated, and there is reason to believe that at least one of his sons is fighting with the Germans.

lk It seems to be a. harmless enough little community, but the British residents of that wide region, who are (beginning to learn something about the German character, are beginning to be restless, and to ask that, at least, these Germans should enjoy no privileges at the hands of the Australian Government.