[Editor: Article mentions the proposal for a separate Aboriginal state in Australia. Provides an example of the thinking of the time that the Australian Aborigines were “dying out”.]
Dying out.
The Aborigines.
Adelaide, March 13.
The rate at which aborigines are dying out is causing concern to a number of public-spirited South Australians. At a meeting to-day it was decided to convene a public meeting to discuss the proposed suggestion that the Federal Government should set aside a large reservation purely for the natives.
Dr. H. Basedow said there had been a deplorable lack of method on the part of the Government, and the natives were, as a result of licentious habits, in many cases dying from disease like so many rats. The only locality where the reservation could be established, so far as the Federal Government was concerned, was in the Northern Territory.
After further discussion, the following motion was carried:— “That a petition be presented to the Federal Parliament praying for the creation of a separate State in Northern Australia to be called the Australian Black State, Australian Zion State, or some more appropriate name, citizenship in which to be restricted to Australian natives who are full-blooded blacks, half-castes, quadroons, or octoroons.”
Source:
The Brisbane Courier (Brisbane, Qld.), Saturday 14 March 1925, page 16
The Institute of Australian Culture
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