It Has Been Suggested That Reserves Should Be Set Apart For The
Dispossessed Natives.
This would, in the opinion of those best able to
express one, never succeed, for once the white man
Is established the
blacks will collect round him, and though, as I have mentioned, there
remains more than half the Kimberley division untouched by whites,
forming a reserve ready to hand, yet the natives prefer to live a
hand-to-mouth existence where food can be obtained without trouble,
rather than retreat into another region where game abounds, and there
continue their existence as wandering savages. Round Hall's Creek there
is always a camp of blacks, varying from twenty to fifty or one hundred,
who live as best they can without hunting.
On Christmas Day a hundred or so rolled up to receive the Aboriginal
Board's liberal bounty - a Board fortunately now reconstructed, for it was
continually the cause of much friction between the squatters, the
Government, and itself, in the days when it was not controlled by the
Government, as it now is. Six pounds sterling was set aside for the
Warden to provide food and raiment for the natives under his
jurisdiction. Six pounds per annum per two thousand aboriginals - for such
is their reputed number - seems hardly adequate. Perhaps if the gentlemen
responsible for this state of affairs had concerned themselves more about
the aboriginals, and less about the supposed barbaric cruelty of the
squatters, the objects of their mission would have been better served.
However, whilst the black-fellow must remain content with his scanty
allowance, it is found expedient to send an inexperienced youth, fresh
from England, from place to place to make a report on the treatment of
the aboriginals, at a salary of 500 pounds a year.
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