At the present time, there are between 4,000 and 5,000 natives, mostly full-bloods, employed in Western Australia. They are giving excellent service on cattle stations, and there is no dearth of employment. In fact, not enough of them are available.
Mr. BAILEY.—What about the womenfolk of the men employed on the stations?
Mr. NEVIIILE.—The women work also. If a station owner takes on an aboriginal man he must also feed and look after that man's dependants. We say that an idle native is a bad native, and we try to induce them to work in one way or another. Even industrial work does not come amiss to the natives. We manufacture about 10,000 garments a year for the natives and every one of them is made by the natives themselves. They work the sewing machines just as well as do white girls.
Reference has been made to institutionalism as applied to the aborigines. It is well known that coloured races all over the world detest institutionalism. They have a tremendous affection for their children. In Western Australian we have only a few institutions for the reception of half-caste illegitimate children, but there are hundreds living in camps close to the country towns under revolting conditions. It is infinitely better to take a child from its mother, and put it in an institution, where it will he looked after, than to allow it to be brought up subject to the influence of such camps. We allow the mothers to go to the institutions also, though they are separated from the children. The mothers are camped some distance away, while the children live in dormitories. The parents may go out to work, and return to see that their children are well and properly looked after. We generally find that, after a few mouths, they are quite content to leave their children there.
Mr. HARKNESS.—What happens to these children afterwards?
Mr. NEVILLE.—They leave in time and go into service or other employment, and they may return to the institution at any time, if they like. Our experience is that they come to regard the institution as their home, and are happy to return to it for their holidays. These homes are simply clearing stations for the future members of the race. We recognize that we cannot do much with the older people, except look after them and see that they are fed. As regards the younger people, from twenty years upwards, we can find employment for them if possible, but it is of the children that we must take notice. You cannot change a native after he has reached the age of puberty, but before that it is possible to mould him. When the quarter-caste home, in which there are now nearly 100 children, was started we had some trouble with the mothers. Although the children were illegitimate, the mothers were greatly attached to them, and did not wish to be parted from them. I adopted the practice of allowing the mothers to go to the institution with the children until they satisfied themselves that they were properly looked after. The mothers were then usually content to leave them there, and some eventually forgot all about them.
Mr. BAILEY.—Are the children, during their hours of recreation, allowed to run back to their mothers who are camped at the institution?
Mr. NEVILLE.—No. The native settlement is divided into two parts, the compound, and the camp, which is about half a mile away. When they enter the institution, the children are removed from the parents, who are allowed to see them occasionally in order to satisfy themselves that they are being properly looked after. At first the mothers tried to entice the children back to the camps, but that difficulty is now being overcome.
Dr. MORRIS.—What percentage of these quarter-caste children marry whites when they grow up?
Mr. NEVILLE.—There has not yet been time for them to grow up.
Mr. HARKNESS.—Can your department take them by force up to any age?
Mr. NEVILLE.—Yes, up to the age of 21.
Dr. COOK.—The point I tried to make in my earlier remarks was that if we leave the aborigine in the north alone they will die out. On the other hand, if we bring them under our influence they will breed, and their numbers increase until they menace our security.
Mr. HARKNESS.—Do you think we should encourage them to breed?
Dr. COOK.—I am not expressing an opinion at the moment. As protectors of a aborigines, having regard to these possibilities we should discuss what our policy is to be. During the last seven or eight years, between 40 and 50 coloured girls have married whites.
Dr. MORRIS.—I am afraid we cannot expect such satisfactory results in other parts of Australia where women are more plentiful than in the Northern Territory.
Dr. COOK.—The answer is that we must make the coloured girls acceptable as whites.
CONDITIONS IN VICTORIA
Mr. CHAPMAN.—We are all agreed that the most urgent problem is the absorption of the quadroons and octoroons into the white community. The trouble is that conditions vary considerably as between one State and another. As Dr. Morris has pointed out, it is probably much easier for coloured girls in the Northern Territory to get white husbands than it would be for such girls in Victoria. Moreover, there is little scope in Victoria for the employment of aborigines or half-castes on stations. Again the powers of control exercised by the departments in the various States vary very greatly. Mr. Neville has told us that in Western Australia the department enjoys practically unfettered control. Under the Victorian act, only full-blooded or half-caste natives who, by licence, reside on a station, or who apply for residence, come under our legislation. There is nothing in the law governing the sale of intoxicating liquor to aborigines to prevent the sale of the liquor to half-castes.
In Victoria, many of the half-castes have been living under civilised conditions for five generations, and they would raise an outcry, in which they would receive support from white people, if any effort were made to deal with them on lines upon which it is proposed to deal with half-castes in Western Australia. Our experience in Victoria is that half-castes will do work under supervision, but they cannot be trusted alone. For example, some of them were engaged recently in road work near Lake Tyers. A bushfire occurred and every pick, fork, shovel and hoe with which they were equipped was destroyed in the fire. The result was that the work was held up until they were re-equipped. That is an example of their lack of responsibility. We had yet another indication not so long ago. Under supervision they built an excellent barn and stables, with a concrete floor, on the station. The manager told me that he arrived just in time to prevent them from laying the concrete before they had put the posts in position. Another difficulty is the inability of the aborigines to fend for themselves. According to our latest statistics, the number of half-castes at Lake Tyers is about 240, whilst, in the whole of Victoria, the number is 586, which means that more than 300 of them are fending for themselves, as members of the community. These people are in no way under supervision of the Board. The only control we have is over those at the Lake Tyers Station—half-castes residing on the station with the permission of the Board. At Framlingham outside Warnambool, we have an area of land which was originally a station for
