[“Points from Letters”, The West Australian, Thursday 30 June 1927, page 14]

Segregation of Natives.

I was very much interested and very much astonished to see by the “Western Mail” of April 27 an interview with Dr. Arthur Adams, R.M., of Wyndham, in which he advocated segregation for the natives. I devoted the best years of my life to these people, and I was pioneer matron of the Bernier Island Lock Hospital in 1908. The natives were then brought to Bernier Island from as far inland as Turkey Creek, Hall’s Creek, and the Northern Territory, and from the civilised districts such as Gascoyne, and the southern areas. I say emphatically that it would be cruel to segregate the natives. Their one passion is love for their country. Nothing replaces that. No matter what may be done for them, what good food is given them, or what kindness is shown them, their love for their country comes first. During my stay on Beriner and Dorre Islands I found that the different tribes never associated with each other. The Australian natives will die like flies if they are shut up in a compound, and there will not be a hundred of them left in a couple of years. With them it is the innate sense of being free, the intense undying love for every branch and leaf and grain of earth of their country that counts. It would be the last thing in cruelty to segregate them. It is nonsense to say that they are a low caste. The Australian native, as seen at New Norcia, can be taught anything.

—Harriet Patricia Lenehan, lately of the Medical and Aboriginal Departments, Western Australia, now of Cork, Ireland. June 6.

AB notes:

Harriet Lenihan, having returned to Ireland, is still responding to claims made in Australian newspapers!

Interesting comments about interaction of different tribal groups on the islands:

“During my stay on Beriner and Dorre Islands I found that the different tribes never associated with each other.”

It seems they co-existed peacefully and for the most part respectfully, but otherwise did not engage with those from other districts.