[“Natives Championed”, The Western Mail (Perth, WA), Thursday 21 April 1927, page 23]
NATIVES CHAMPIONED.
“SEVERITY OF FEUDAL LAW.”
Segregation Advocated.
Wyndham, April 18.
A one pound note is not such a rarity that the average man of affairs need be unfamiliar with the design on the reverse side, and yet when Dr. Arthur Adams, Resident Magistrate at Wyndham, referred to it to give point to his evidence before the Royal Commission, he set everybody present thinking pretty hard. The doctor had mentioned the Court records in support of his statement that cattle killing by blacks was rife in that part of the State, and when it was suggested that anyone who had suffered from such depredations would not feel too kindly toward the blacks, he produced a note from his wallet, and said:—“From a very early period we can date the want of sympathy between the present white occupiers of the land and the dispossessed aboriginal natives. January 26, 1788, is commemorated as the foundation of Australia. On the back of a one pound note is portrayed the landing of Captain Cook. You also observe there depicted the first incident of the shooting of natives in Australia. To me it seems rather unfortunate that that should have been portrayed on our currency. If the designers of the note had cut out the marine and two sailors, who apparently are represented as taking potshots at the natives in the distance, and contented themselves by dealing simply with the landing of Captain Cook, the result would have been very much happier.”
On this point Mr. Wood recorded a different view, namely, that Captain Cook, who represented the high authority of his Government, appeared rather to be in the act of restraining his men from shooting. That, to his mind, typified the protection afforded the blacks by the Government in those days, and might be taken as emphasising the protection nowadays extended to the blacks that come under its sway.
The Cause of the Blacks.
Dr. Adams then proceeded to champion the cause of the blacks in most emphatic terms. “In no part of the world has the native population been more evilly treated than in Australia. I speak especially of Western Australia, and from 27 years’ experience. The majority of the rightful owners of the soil are vagrants on the face of the earth, and are in the same state as they were 140 years ago, with the exception that they now exist in vastly diminished numbers. I calculate that in the north during the last 50 years something like 10,000 natives have disappeared by devious means—not necessarily old age. Their natural game has been either exterminated or frightened away, and the place of the native game is taken by flocks and herds of their white oppressors. If the natives in desperation, to satisfy hunger or what not, do kill cattle, do not forget, that the native has an idea of sport just as has the white man. All the severity of the feudal law is inflicted upon the blacks. For this there is only one remedy, and that is to make the whole native question a Federal matter, with a provision that each State provide a permanent reserve in which all the natives of the State, concerned would be drafted—in short, segregation, absolute segregation. From the reserve the natives should be allowed to pass out only after having qualified in thc sixth standard of the education test of the respective States, and they should thus receive their freedome and franchise and take their place as an equal of the white.”
The Commissioner: Do you believe that the natives intellectually are capable of such an attainment?
Dr. Adams: If during the last 50 years the natives had been taken from their savage surroundings, had been civilised and instructed by the best teachers that the Education Department could give them, to which they are entitled, starting with the kindergarten and Montessori systems from the tender age of two to six years, and later instructed in efficient schools conducted by qualified teachers, and not by the amateurs of the present time, there would be fully as many aboriginal undergraduates in the University of Western Australia as there are whites.
“Tho Vagabond Race.”
Continuing, he said that, considering what the natives had been dispossessed of by the whites, if a substantial sum of money had been allocated to the education and civilisation of the blacks, much good would have been achieved. Forty years ago the Rev. John Gribble had created a considerable stir hy his publications regarding the evil treatment of the blacks in the Gascoyne region, but nothing was done to rectify matters. Twenty years later Dr. Roth conducted a Royal Commission and fully substantiated what the Rev. John Gribble had stated. Beyond a few amendments to the Aborigines Act nothing has since been done for the amelioration of thc vagabond race.
Mr. Nairn began to cross-examine the doctor, who straightway interposed: “Pray, who are you?”
The Commissioner replied that Mr Nairn was appearing as counsel for interested parties.
Dr. Adams contended that he was present as a Crown witness, and in equity. If a Crown witness was to be heckled by a member of the legal fraternity he should be protected by a Crown solicitor of criminal law experience. After further discussion it was agreed that Mr. Nairn should question thc witness through the Commissioner.
Witness: I have not been subpoenaed. I received a notification asking me to appear; and I recognised it as my duty to appear.
Mr. Nairn: “You have done more than you wore asked in that you have volunteered a Jot of nonsense.”
The Commissioner: Mr. Nairn, you must put your questions through me.
Witness: “Now you can see the stand taken by Solicitor Nairn.
Mr. Nairn: We generally have to have a third party when dealing with Chinamen and other foreigners, but not when dealing with gentlemen.
Witness, in reply to questions, said a census of the natives in this State had never been taken, and the authorities knew nothing of the natives, born, living, or dead. Where natives had formerly swarmed in thousands there were now only seores or solitary individuals. His experience of Australian natives was confined to his service in Western Australia.
[page 28]
Mr. Nairn: And upon that the doctor makes the very wide statement that the blacks here are treated worse than are those in any other part of the world.
Witness: When I came here 27 years ago there was allocated a land tax of 1d. per acre as a sort of return for the land taken from the natives, bet even that has been abolished. Dr. Adams produced a paper bark parcel of bone fragments gathered at Mowerie by the Rev. James Noble. “Sadly broken and undoubtedly calcined,” he commented. “To the best of my belief,” he added, “they are probably human remains. The majority appear to be portion of ribs or of the long bone from the foot or hand.
The Commissioner then took charge of the exhibits with a view to having them examined by an expert.
The examination of Daniel Muruane at Derby next week will conclude the evidence in the north.
