Walter Malcolmson
“…slave state of the Commonwealth…”
In the “Western Mail” newspaper, 1904, was reprinted a letter to the editor of “The London Times”, written by an Irishman, Walter Malcolmson, in which he described West Australian as ‘the slave State of the Commonwealth … owing to the native’s indenture system.
“The Aborigines in the North West are worse off than the negro was in the American slave days.” He had repeatedly seen masters (employers) flog natives for trivial offences , and indentured native servants on stations were often reduced to eating offal.
Mr Malcolmson asserts that he offered to furnish the Commonwealth Government and the Parliament of West Australia with evidence of numerous acts of cruelty which he had witnessed himself, but his evidence was not desired.
COMMENTS
