CONFIDENTIAL
His Honour,
The Administrator
In accordance with the instruction contained in your memorandum of 14th April, 1938, I submit herewith my comments on the proposed aboriginal policy outlined by the Minister and forwarded under cover of the Secretary’s confidential memorandum of 11th instant.
At the outset I wish to state that the second paragraph of the Secretary’s memorandum is not understood. Apart from the suggested alteration in administrative control, the policy outlined is that approved by the Honourable T. Paterson some considerable time ago and put into effect here, in its initial stages, immediately. The use of the words “might be adopted” in the second paragraph of the Secretary’s memorandum in relation to this policy is therefore puzzling.
Administration – The use of the word “Department” suggests that the Minister may have in mind the creation of a Department within the Commonwealth Public Service, distinct from the Department of the Interior, which shall be vested with the control of aboriginals. Should this be the case, I would suggest that the plan would be unworkable unless the officer appointed to the executive position at Canberra had had several years experiences of aboriginal protection routine in the Territory.
I think, however, that the word “Department” is possibly a typographical error and that the intention is to create a new Branch within the local Administration and I shall devote myself to that aspect.
Policy. – The broad outline of policy is indicated in paragraphs 9,10 and 11. Paragraph 12 states that routine matters will be attended to in the ordinary course of the general administration of the Branch. Paragraphs 9,10 and 11, however indicate special activities of the new Aboriginal Branch. The effective application of every one of these demands that the new Aboriginal Branch shall be provided with a hygiene and medical organization. For example:-
9 (a). Myalls are to be kept as far as possible, in their own country and preserved from white interference. If this policy is to be justified it must be supplemented by provision for the effective medical treatment of the sick and injured on reserves. Where missions are permitted on reserves in the neighbourhood of these people, strict rules of sanitation, dietary and personal hygiene must be imposed and the risk of the communication of disease from black to white, or from white to black controlled.
9 (b). Semi-detribalised aboriginals. The principal disabilities of the impact of white civilization upon the aboriginal may be grouped as follows:-
- Economic. These, it is understood, are to be regulated in the course of the general administration of the Department.
- Medical and hygienic. These must remain the province of a specially organized medical service.
9 (c) Fully detribalized. This class of native requires:-
- Control of conditions of employment by the routine of the Branch already referred to.
- Education.
- Medical care.
It is a fallacy to suppose that the province of the physician and hygienist is limited in respect of the aboriginal to medical attention, supervision of sanitation and provision of hospitals. Take, for example, the apparently wholly alien question of employment. No aboriginal should be signed on in employment to any white employer without prior medical examination to ensure at least that he is free from venereal disease, hookworm and leprosy. No person should be issued with a licence to employ aboriginals unless the Protector authorising the employment is satisfied that this individual is not suffering from any communicable disease or living in conditions detrimental to the health of the aboriginal. It definitely is not possible to impart this information to a lay organization. The very structure of the Northern Territory Medical Service, at the present time, is such that the Chief Protector is informed in these matters by virtue of his being also the Chief Medical Officer. No breach of confidence is entailed in refusing a licence to any individual in the interest of the aboriginal on this ground. By no other means could this end be achieved and confidence respected.
10. Missions. – Apart from education, which has been neglected, the principal purpose of a mission from the viewpoint of the State is the medical care of aboriginals on the reserves. In this respect missions must be fully under the control of an organized medical service.
11. Medical. – It is suggested that the medical work may be divorced from general aboriginal protection. I state emphatically that this is an illusion. No Chief Protector would be competent, effectively to conduct the affairs of the Aboriginal Branch unless he had a medical organization under his control. No Chief Medical Officer could conscientiously undertake the responsibility of the medical care and sanitation of the Northern Territory unless his subordinate organisation were fully vested with the powers of the Aboriginal Branch. Doubtless, there would be many who would take office as Chief Protector in the hope that the responsibility for medical service would be undertaken by a co-operating organization. Their efforts would be foredoomed to failure, as they have failed everywhere throughout Australia hitherto, under these circumstances. There would also be many medical officers, possibly of brilliant qualifications, prepared to undertake the duties of Chief Medical Officer of a Medical Service divorced from the Aboriginal Branch. This would be due to lack of knowledge of the problems to be faced and of practical methods of dealing with them. Such an officer would eventually be faced with the alternatives of temporising with his responsibilities in order to retain his position and salary, or resignation.
I formed the opinion in 1924, when I conducted a survey of the aboriginal population of Western Australia on behalf of the Western Australian and Commonwealth Governments, that the only practicable means of meeting the aboriginal problem, social, economic and medical, was to combined the activities of aboriginal protection and medical service. Fourteen years have elapsed since I formed this opinion and the passage of time has only served to strengthen and confirm me in it. You asked me, Sir, when discussing these proposals with you verbally, which appointment of the two suggested I would prefer, assuming for the sake of discussion that that of Chief Protector might be available to me. I replied, and now confirm this, that I would loath to accept either as I consider that efficiency demands that one officer must hold both positions.
By far the greater proportion of the activity of an aboriginal protection Branch has a medical significance. Effective medical action amongst aboriginals is impossible, moreover, unless the medical agent has the standing of an officer of the Aboriginal Branch. This truism, submitted as a suggestion in 1924 to the Western Australian Government and as a recommendation, subsequently adopted in 1926, to the Commonwealth Government, has now become the accepted policy of such organizations as the British Medical Association, who have given detailed consideration the matter. It has been endorsed by the Australian Congress of the British Medical Association and only difficulties inherent in the Public Service system have temporarily delayed its full adoption in the Statement of Queensland, where Sir Raphael Cilento has become one of its principal advocates.
This being so, one casts about for a reason for changing the system originally adopted in the Territory as a step forward in aboriginal protection. The first that suggests itself is the propaganda of individuals and organizations with an anthropological bias. May I refer you to a letter in the Australian Medical Journal of 5th February, 1938, from the Government Medical Officer, Thursday Island, in which the following sentence appears:-
It is surprising that the most important factor in deciding native policy should remain in the background. This factor is skilled medical care of all natives in each category, tribal, mission and free…….. In their tribal state the natives of the far north of Australia are helpless victims of at least four endemic diseases…….. All these diseases are curable by specific drugs. Untreated, each disease becomes an intolerable scourge. For some years past too much prominence has been given to the views of anthropologists and too little has been heard of the accumulated knowledge of men like Chief Protector at Darwin.
It is not clear to me what advantage is likely to accrue by the appointment of an anthropologist as Chief Protector. The anthropologist is a student of manners and customs and not an executive. This appears to have been recognised in the proposed policy by the inclusion of section 12, which states that routine administration shall be carried on by the Branch independent of the Chief Protector. If routine work is to be done by an Assistant Chief Protector and his staff, medical care is to be the responsibility of a separate Medical Service and education is to be effected by an Education Staff, there would appear to be little of a useful nature left for the Chief Protector to do. If he is to devote himself to the study of tribal organization, with a view to elucidating the most suitable means of adapting the myall aboriginal to white civilization, I feel that this purpose would be as well served by the appointment of an anthropologist as an advisor to the Chief Protector.
The new Chief Protector is to be a man of executive ability. Is it suggested that, staffing disabilities being taken into consideration, this quality is lacking in the present Chief Protector? If not, surely twelve years experience in this particular problem must qualify him for continuance in office, provided necessary alteration to the staff are made. By what standard is the executive ability of any man, in relation to his capacity to deal with the aboriginal problem, to be measured unless he has for an appreciable time been confronted with it?
It seems to have been overlooked that aboriginal protection is not an exact science and any person with a rudimentary knowledge of native social organization may set himself up as an authority, not only as a Protector of Aboriginals but also as an anthropologist. Too much attention appears to have been paid to the clamourings of protection organizations and anthropologists and I do not think the appointment of an anthropologist as Chief Protector is likely in any way to be effective in checking criticism by other anthropologists. Quite recently we have been faced with an embarrassment of this very nature. In a previous trial of aboriginals in the Supreme Court, Mr. Stanner, an anthropologist, gave evidence recommending corporal punishment for aboriginals. A Board of Enquiry, including an anthropologist, a clergyman interested in aboriginal welfare and a responsible officer of the Aboriginal Branch recommended the adoption of corporal punishment in certain cases. The recommendation was submitted to the Administration’s own anthropologist, who expressed the view that corporal punishment would be largely ineffectual and sometimes actually dangerous by reason of the aboriginal’s very high toleration of pain and the possibility of his gaining prestige by ridiculing white efforts to discipline him. Now the first is quoted by the Judge of the Supreme Court to the embarrassment of an Administration guided by the second.
The appointment of patrol officers within the Aboriginal Branch, recommended in this policy, is not a novelty. Patrol officers have been employed under the present administration for some considerable time. Medical patrol officers are an absolute necessity. Either, therefore, there must be duplication in the appointment of patrol officers, or medical patrol officers must perform Aboriginal Branch work. I am unable to see how, under existing conditions, a patrol officer could achieve anything in the direction of education amongst myall or semi-detribalised aboriginals. Education must, for the time being, be confined to centres of settlement, where some continuity in attendance may be expected. The time may come when this ideal may become practicable but, for the present it is illusory.
As to the policy in general I have no comment to make, since it was originally submitted and recommended by me in detail. I do, however, with all sincerity, urge that the Chief Protector must remain the Chief Medical Officer and vice versa. Expansion of the clerical staff connected with routine duties of aboriginal protection is a sine quo non and will remove all the disabilities, complaints concerning which have probably originated this proposed reorganization. Additional patrol officers are necessary and have been recommended. I wish, with the greatest emphasis, to state that if any scheme of aboriginal protection is to be successful, every executive aboriginal protector must have a medical service conscience and every officer of the Medical Service, brought into contact with aboriginals, must have the standing of an officer of the Aboriginal Branch.
Cecil Cook
(C. E. COOK).
Chief Protector of Aboriginals
29.4.38