The Sun (Sydney, NSW) Monday 15 August 1938p2
CIVIC RIGHTS FOR BLACKS: MINISTER’S PLAN TO UPLIFT STATUS
Training In Station Trades as Qualification
From Our Special Representative with Federal Ministerial party visiting, Northern Territory.
Full citizen rights will be held out to individual aborigines as an incentive to them to improve their social status, said the Minister for the Interior, Mr. McEwen, to-day.
“While I realise that at present there are very few natives who have the stability of character needed,” he said, “with a system of teaching simple trades through missions and institutes, I think it will not be long before the majority of the race qualify for the honour.”
“I intend to do all I can to help the aborigines,” said Mr. McEwen. “My main objectives are to preserve their general health and restore those natives who have been degenerated by contact with whites to their former fine physique; and to improve their social status.” Mr. McEwen said he felt that the Federal Government and the missions had greater scope for co-operation than had been practised in the past; although, if the Government depended on missions to discharge the national obligation of training the character and interests of the natives, the Government would have to bear a certain financial burden. But if such a policy were pursued by the Government, it would expect that the missions would follow certain lines in their care of the aborigines approved by the Government. Mr. McEwen said that after discussions with the Administrator (Mr. Abbott), Dr. Cook (Chief Protector of Aborigines) and Mr. E. W. P. Chinnery (Chief Protector of Natives in New Guinea), who is travelling with him, he would probably institute a simple trade training scheme for aborigines. The trades would be station trades, such as harness-making, stockyard building and stock management.
Spiritual Background: Mr. McEwen said he felt that the wrench of having all their traditional customs and spiritual beliefs destroyed by contact with the whites’ civilisation had so destroyed the aborigines’ stability of character that even when industrial training was given them it would have to be supplemented by some spiritual background before they were fit to take their place in society. “There is scarcely a corner of the Northern Territory which has not proved itself rich in metals – gold, wolfram, tantalite and copper, and also asbestos,” said the Minister. He felt sure mining would receive a new lease of life from the newly-organised staff of field officers, who would be in constant contact with mines and prospectors.
At Pine Creek goldfield, the Government mining batteries would be improved. Mr. McEwen warned unskilled men from the south not to come north unless they had a position to go to. Hotel Accommodation Deputations from the pearling Industry will see Mr. McEwen at Darwin and Broome. He said today that he hoped to carry to the Government some proposal whereby the industry could be assisted to meet foreign competition. He will investigate the efficiency of the present patrol-boats and the adequacy of the service. Hotel accommodation in Darwin will receive his special consideration. Present facilities were causing considerable concern to the Administration, said Mr. McEwen. An overhaul of the licensing laws would be made. The Minister will leave Darwin for Perth by the motor ship Koolama on August 24.
Cook’s File Note:
Judging from recent press comment upon the social status of aborigines there appears to be a widely held belief that the Commonwealth has only recently and in response to organised popular demand, developed an enlightened native policy.
This error demands correction not only in the interests of historical accuracy. Its persistence by engendering complacency is likely to inhibit the development of a critical interest in native welfare and to retard these changes in white society itself which are a condition precedent to full acceptance of the native.
The Australian native problem is probably unique. It is the problem of a primitive black race required to live as an integral part of an uncompromising alien civilisation with which its social organisation and culture are incompatible. Elsewhere as in the Pacific Islands native culture, though it may be gradually modified, is paramount and the white man adapts himself to it. Because it is unique, experience and training in its management can only be acquired by active participation in State and Territory Health and Native Affairs Administration. No academic training can of itself equip the Australian native affairs officer for his task, although some knowledge of medicine and of anthropology are both necessary prerequisites.
A later generation will perhaps not recollect that in the twenties the conviction that tropical Australia was unsuitable for healthy and unprofitable white settlement was still widely held and acrimoniously debated. It was still feared that tropical diseases, more particularly malaria, leprosy and hookworm might separately or together occasion a health problem demanding abandonment of the White Australia Policy. The Commonwealth Government realising that apart from any economic consideration successful white settlement of the North was primarily a problem of health administration, in 1928 established the North Australia Medical Service to control and if possible, to eliminate tropical disease from the area of Northern Territory north of the 20th parallel. It was believed that native administration and health administration were indissolubly linked and that neither could be effectually attempted independently of the other. The Government therefore vested native administration in its Medical Service. It was this Service which as early as 1928 enunciated the principle, at that time considered fantastic, that effectual health control in Northern Australia must ultimately wholly depend upon the complete integration of the native population into the white community. The Commonwealth policy of “assimilation” was born in the twenties and not as has latterly been suggested, in the later thirties.
The early years of the Medical Service were the depression years and to achieve its purpose it had recourse to many expedients which may compare unfavourably with the more lavish enterprises permitted by the generous financial grants of recent years.
Nevertheless, it initiated an elaborate campaign to seek out and eradicate communicable disease, submitting all natives in contact with civilisation to frequent mass and individual medical examination. It controlled the employment of natives to minimise the opportunity of infection of either race by other and maintained an individual medical record of every native in contact. It established hospitals and clinics throughout the Territory to provide natives with the medical attention which they had hitherto been denied unless they could be removed to Darwin. It undertook a vigorous campaign for the improvement of hygiene on missions and in employment camps, improved the conditions of employment, enforced an improved dietary standard and generally raised the status of the native from a serf to that of a free, if sheltered, member of the community.
It was this Service which forced missions and employers of native labour to put down air strips so that a medical officer or inspector could visit at short notice and at any time.