COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
NORTHERN TERRITORY MEDICAL SERVICE
DARWIN, 23rd July, 1932
His Honour,
The Administrator
- Conditions of employment.
In North Australia until the introduction of the Half-Caste Apprentices Regulations Aboriginal Half-Caste youths were employed in rural districts under the same conditions as full blood Aboriginals; that is to say they were clothed and fed by the employer but received no wage. These conditions still obtain in Central Australia. The law requires that the employee be properly clothed and fed to the satisfaction of the Protector – actually it is extremely difficult for a Protector to satisfy himself on these points owing to the remoteness of many of the properties in his district.
Aboriginal labour is, therefore, unpaid labour, and this circumstance, were there any duress or coercion towards employment would make the conditions of service analogous to slavery. In order to overcome this objection the Chief Protector requires that the Station employing an Aboriginal shall maintain all those persons dependent upon him whom otherwise he would provide for in native fashion. That there is amongst employers an inclination towards the application of principles of slavery to Aboriginal employees, is evidenced by the fact that there is an unwritten law amongst employers that the shall not employ an Aboriginal “belonging to” i.e. previously employed by or resident upon any other station without the consent of the former employer. In the case of Aboriginals this suggestion of ownership is combated by Protectors insisting that Aboriginals are free to commence and cease work at will unless employed under agreement at a prescribed wage for definite period not exceeding 12 months.
It may be said, therefore, that under these conditions Aboriginal labour is neither forced labour nor slavery but I personally am not satisfied that the same generalization is true of the Half-Caste under the age of 21 years.
Certain factors are operative which introduce some degree of duress and property relationship between Half-Caste employee and white employer:-
(a) The Half-Caste youth has no home other than that provided for him by his employer.
(b) He has no kin and no dependents so that his labour is exchanged solely for his own maintenance which may or may not be adequate between the occasional visits of a Protector.
(c) He is unable to cease work and leave his employment at will. If he should run away to an adjoining Station his condition would not thereby be improved – more probably he would be promptly returned to his employer under the unwritten law already mentioned.
(d) The employer may and often does claim to be his father and profess to actuated solely by interest in the boy’s welfare. In such a case, well meaning persons including Protectors may be persuaded to compel the youth to uncongenial employment and the exercise of these powers of ownership, which constitute slavery, is not disputed.
(e) In certain instances he may be unable to run away without grave risk of perishing for the locality of his employment may be a considerable distance – in some case over 100 miles – from the nearest settlement. This distance it would be necessary for him to cover on foot without food and probably without water.
(f) The employer is in a position to intimidate the Half-Caste employee, threatening that if the youth shows dissatisfaction or incompetence he will be handed over to the Police for detention and correction in a Compound, of which Institution a very terrifying picture may be painted. By these means the employer is in a position to alienate the confidence of the Half-Caste youth from his Protector, whom he only occasionally sees, so that when enquiry is made into his condition and his willingness to continue service his replies are framed in consonance with the interests of his master.
Even if it be admitted that the employment of Half-Caste youths under these circumstances does not constitute a condition of slavery, I do not think that it can be disputed that it amounts to one of forced labour analogous to slavery.
In 1929 the International Labour Office of the League of Nations tentatively defined forced labour as follows:-
All work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty for its non-performance and for which the worker does not offer himself voluntarily.
The uneducated Half-Caste youth, who is influenced by his master to mistrust his Protectors, is in no case to be certified as offering himself voluntarily for any employment. This circumstance, coupled with the risk that the employer may without fear of direction, exercise by menaces a determining influence on the boy continuing employment leaves the Commonwealth open to the charge of conniving at forced labour within its Territories.
The League of Nations Slavery Convention was signed at Geneva at 1926 on behalf of the Commonwealth by the Honourable J.G. Latham and the Commonwealth is, therefore, committed to the application of the principles enunciated by the Convention. The Convention took the view that in certain States and Dependencies the continuance of forced labour was tolerable in view of the peculiar social organization of their peoples. It was held that “in tropical African States and Dependencies where advanced and backward cultures are in contact there in is a certain educative condition in compulsory labour; it is at the same time recognised that these ends are defeated and may degenerate into conditions analogous to slavery if unguided by strict policies of just and considerate treatment. Important amongst these policies and principles are:-
- The work should be of a public character in which general community benefit can be recognised.
- It must be essential.
- There should be a stipulated period during the year in which such work is wholly inadmissible; [and]
- The labour in all cases must be paid
Australia cannot claim to be a country where conflict of white and native organizations renders forced labour desirable in the community interest. Even if it were, forced labour in respect of Half-Caste youths is not mitigated or influenced by the limitations laid down by the Convention.
It is not suggested that all unpaid Half-Caste youths engaged in the Pastoral Industry of the Northern Territory are employed under conditions of forced Labour. The contention is that the existing system in Central Australia lends itself to exploitation by unscrupulous employers for the purpose of securing Half-Caste youths in employment under conditions of forced labour analogous to slavery, the worst feature of the evil being that Government Institutions and Officers may be incidentally utilized to this end.
When it is remembered that the High Contracting Parties, of whom Australia is one, pledged themselves progressively and as soon as possible to put an end to forced labour in their respective Territories it becomes of the utmost importance that immediate action be taken to regulate the conditions under which Half-Castes are employed on pastoral properties in the Northern Territory. Such action must include provision for their adequate remuneration and their employment under an agreement or contract which shall terminate forced labour both in appearance and fact.
- The Social Problem
The importance of a coloured element contained within a white community is dependent upon the degree of assimilation taking place and the success or otherwise with which that coloured section adopts the social, economic and industrial standards of the white.
Where the coloured individual is “white” in all but colour very little conflict is likely to take place industrially and if the white population predominates it is only a matter of time before the colour is bred out altogether.
On the other hand where the coloured element maintains different standards to the white there must inevitably be considerable amount of unrest and conflict, particularly in the industrial field. In a small community such as that occupying the Northern Territory where policing is difficult such conflict is liable to assume grave proportions when the coloured element of the population bulks large. At present and for the immediate future it does not appear that the Aboriginal will present a problem of this nature as his is a social structure which finds a definite place and does not materially conflict with white rural organization. The Aboriginal moreover is fast disappearing from centres of denser white population. The Half-caste on the other hand has no place in either the white or the native social structure, his kind is rapidly increasing in numbers, particularly in the white communities and his exclusion from civil rights can only result in the development of a racial inferiority complex which will bring him into constant conflict with the white.
The white population of the Northern Territory for the year 1932 was 2,950 and the Half-Caste population 852 of whom the majority are children and the remainder young adults. The Half-Castes, therefore, already constitute a very appreciable section of the community. The necessity for assimilating the Half-Caste into the white population has for some years been recognised in the Territory and he has been granted full rights of citizenship on attaining the age of 21 years. It is obvious that this is not sufficient. If the Half-Caste is to be vested with the full rights of citizenship on attaining the age of 21 years, it is imperative that he be reared under conditions conducive to his qualifying for that privilege. At the present time on Stations, unless removed by the Chief Protector, he is repressed into the Aboriginal Camp to be reared as an Aboriginal so that on attaining the age of 21 years he is socially and industrially no more and no less than an Aboriginal native except that he is entitled to vote as a white man. It is of these persons that pastoralists aver that they invariably revert to Aboriginal standards and should not be classified as whites. It follows then that action must be taken to ensure that such Half-Castes are better qualified to receive the franchise on attaining the age of 21 years than has been the case in the past.
From such information as is available in the absence of a census which was due in 1931, it appears that the rate of natural increase (as distinct from immigration) in the Northern Territory is as follows:
Whites -10 per thousand per annum
Half-Castes +20 per thousand per annum
Whereas the white population declines by 1% annually the Half-Caste population increases by 2%. In a matter of 15 or 20 years Half-Castes will have reproduced sufficiently to become a predominant part of the local population and as the Territory’s capacity for absorbing labour is limited they will either be destitute unemployed supported by the Government or they will displace white labour in the Territory. In the absence of some highly developmental factor promoting a much more rapid white settlement than has occurred during the last twenty years, the future offers two alternatives.
(a) To permit the Half-Caste to multiply and to compete with white labour under the present conditions. Thus will be evolved a considerable population of ignorant, indolent, unemployed and destitute persons which will:
(i) provide a profitable field for revolutionary agitators and be numerically sufficiently strong to threaten the peace, order and good Government of the Territory.
(ii) compete as cheap labour with the white man filling all new jobs and displacing him from those he now holds until eventually the Half-Caste controls the labour market.
From either of these outcomes only grave disturbances can follow particularly in the part of Australia which is at once the most sparsely populated and the most vulnerable.
(b) To treat the Half-Case as a white, educating him to compete on equal terms with white citizen. In this way there will be little opportunity of the Half-Caste controlling the labour market except on the ground of merit. This procedure moreover opens another field in the solution of the urgent problem with which we are at present faced. By elevating the girls to white standard it will be possible to marry an increasing number too white settlers, whilst the boys could be safely removed to centres of denser white population where they would be competent to take work on the same basis as white men, thereby reducing the coloured population of the Territory and very appreciably diminishing the coloured birth-rate.
I have considered this problem from every angle and I am convinced that this latter alternative is only the method by which the future of this country can be safeguarded in the absence of such radical methods as sterilization of the unfit and legalized abortion.
I am of opinion that no further legislation is necessary to facilitate the execution of this policy but it is essential that the Apprentices (Half-Castes) Regulations remain in full force. These regulations have from time to time been strenuously opposed by the Pastoral Lessees’ Association and by individual pastoralists but the objections raised have in no case been supported by actual fact and have been very readily answered. It may, however, be desirable at this stage to indicate briefly the necessity for the retention of certain sections of the Regulations which have been most bitterly attacked:-
- Award Rates of Pay – The necessity for prescribing that the Half-Caste’s wage shall be identical with that required for a white is apparent in view of the statement that it is considered necessary that he shall not compete with the white on a basis of preference.
- Award conditions – The Half-Caste must be elevated to the white standard of living and this can only be affected by accustoming him to those standards. If these standards are not required for him or if on maturity he does not require them for himself he is at once a person unqualified to accept white citizenship and one who can compete in the labour market on a better footing than the white labourer.
- Power of the Chief Protector to compel employers of Aboriginal labour to apprentice Half-Castes. The employment of Aboriginal labour is undoubtedly more profitable than the employment of white labour on award rates. The employer, therefore, actually is utilizing coloured labour to the exclusion of white in a country where it is the policy of the Government to promote settlement by a white population. It is considered fair and reasonable that as this employment of Aboriginals is productive of the breeding of Half-Castes and as the Half-Caste is a further menace to white settlement that the employer shall be compelled to discharge his moral obligation by contributing towards the elevation of the Half-Caste to the white standard. This is many instances can only be effected by legal enforcement and for this reason the section providing the Chief Protector with power to compel this employment must remain.
It is felt that with the continuance of this legislation and the inauguration of a policy of promoting Quadroon settlement in the Territory and the transferring Half-Castes to centres of denser white population the grave social problem, which at present threatens the Territory, may yet be circumvented. It is further held that any variation of this legislation, which makes this policy more difficult of application, can only be attended with disastrous results in the immediate future of the Northern Territory and that all the relevant legislation at present in existence will be required to put the policy outlined into effect.
Cecil Cook.
Chief Protector of Aboriginals