Australasia: Eight Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office — John Shaqi
Australasia: Eight Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial OfficeSargent, A. J. (Arthur John)
History
Australasia: Eight Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office
Sargent, A. J. (Arthur John)
Australasia -- Description and travel
The native life in its original form is decaying, and survives
chiefly in the interior and the west. Wherever white occupation
has extended, the native is dying out; in fact, in some parts
he survives only on the Government Reservations. Here are some 45
of these survivors in Victoria. Here again, in Queensland, we 46
see the native converted to European clothes, though he does not 47
seem very comfortable in them. In this district, as in South and
Western Australia, and the Northern Territory, they still exist
in considerable number; but it is probable that there are less
than 100,000 in all in the Commonwealth. In the census of 1911 an
attempt was made to count them, and some 20,000 were found to be
living in or near white settlements; only a vague estimate was
possible in the case of the tribes of the interior, who still
live their nomadic life in the more inaccessible parts of the
country. But the area untouched by the white man grows smaller
every year, and unless the native can change his character
greatly, he is likely to die out in the north and west as in the
south-east. In 1911 there were only about two thousand in New
South Wales, hardly any in Victoria, and none at all in Tasmania.
It was inevitable that the Australian native should be displaced
from his hunting grounds. An area about equal to that of the
United States could not be left in the sole occupation of a few
thousand savages. Now, instead of the savage with his primitive
tribal system, we have a white race, purely British in origin,
with industry and agriculture of the most advanced type, and an
elaborate political constitution of federated States. It is the
utilisation, by the white man, of the resources of this vast area
which we must study.
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