[“Yokohama Hamilton as a Guardian of Morality”, The Worker (Brisbane, Qld), Saturday 25 June 1904, page 3]

Yokohama Hamilton as a Guardian of Morality,

Among a mass of correspondence laid upon the table of the Legislative Assembly last week was one document of more than passing interest. It was a letter from the Chief Protector of Aboriginals, Dr. Roth, to the Under-Secretary of the Home Secretary’s Department, asking for “such redress as is possible for the vilifying statement made by the honourable member for Cook, as published in Hansard, 29th October, 1902, p. 989.”

The statement complained of is as follows:—

He and another honourable member had been requested to make another charge against Dr. Roth—that he had been guilty of taking photographs of male and female aboriginals in the most indecent positions. He could show honourable members the photographs, and he considered that to allow an officer who did that sort of thing to remain in the service was a disgrace to his chief. He contended that, in the interests of the public, an inquiry should be held.

Dr. Roth in his letter explains that the photograph shown to members of the House by the hon. member for Cook was one of which there is an identical illustration in his work, “Ethnological Studies,” which was published by the Queensland Government some five years ago, and a copy of which was “graciously accepted” by the Prince of Wales. The photograph was intended for strictly scientific use, and was placed for safe keeping in the custody of Mr. Mobsby, artist photographer to the Department of Agriculture, together with other scientific material and MSS. From this officer the hon. member for Cook obtained it by falsely representing that he had official authority to take it on loan. “Repeated applications for its return failed to do more than evoke a promise to ’send it round,’ which promise has never been fulfilled,” writes Dr. Roth, and his statement is confirmed by a letter from Mr. Mobsby. Mr. Hamilton, apparently, was “sending it round” in quite another fashion. The transaction is scarcely one calculated to enhance the reputation of Yokohama. It is too much to ask an unbelieving generation to accept the view that he acted solely in the interests of morality. The photograph that could wring a blush from the ex-Parliamentary lodger ought to be worth preserving as a pornographical curiosity, but what are we to say of the Queensland Government and of his Princeship of Wales, one of whom publishes, and the other accepts, reproductions of photos which have sent the crimson tide of outraged modesty flowing to the cheeks of Yokohama’s member?

Dr. Roth asks for redress; none is necessary. There is not another member of the Assembly who would have been guilty of so despicable a trick in order to injure one against whom a grudge was cherished. Dr. Roth need not put himself out of the way to vindicate his honour. The charge against him is answered, refuted, blasted to the four winds and utterly discredited by the source from which it emanates.

AB notes:

Roth had his allies, especially on the left. Quotable:

“Dr. Roth asks for redress; none is necessary. There is not another member of the Assembly who would have been guilty of so despicable a trick in order to injure one against whom a grudge was cherished. Dr. Roth need not put himself out of the way to vindicate his honour. The charge against him is answered, refuted, blasted to the four winds and utterly discredited by the source from which it emanates.”