452 PKOCEEDINGS OF SECTION P. 



(d) A valuable labour asset would be preserved. The 

 pastoral settlement of Australia in its first stages 

 was almost entirely dependent upon the local native 

 labour, and, even now, in some cases, stations 

 shearing 40,000 or 50,000 sheep have only one or 

 two white men on them, with, perhaps, 40 or 50 of 

 the aborigines. 



5. We recommend therefore that the General Council of the 

 Association should communicate to the Federal Government the 

 information that, in the opinion of the Association, the appoint- 

 ment of a Commission of Inquiry is desirable and necessary, with 

 a view, if it be found expedient, to the appointment of a Per- 

 manent Native Commission, as recommended in paragraph 3, for 

 the well-being and preservation of the native race of Australia; 

 and that this Commission of Inquiry should include among its 

 members the Chief Protectors of Aborigines of the States con- 

 cerned. That, pending the establishment of a Permanent Com- 

 mission, the system of reserves should be widely extended in all 

 the northern parts of the Continent, where large numbers of blacks 

 still survive under more or less natural conditions; that the 

 training of the blacks in pastoral pursuits, and in simple 

 mechanical arts, such as carpentering, blacksmithing, &c., should 

 form part of the reserve system; and that at some later stage of 

 development some simple form of agriculture should gradually be 

 introduced. 



We recommend also that, should the General Council concur 

 with these recommendations, it should also suggest to the Federal 

 Government that it might be desirable to exempt from the opera- 

 tion of the above scheme the small number of aborigines who 

 survive in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, inas- 

 much as they represent a later stage of the aboriginal problem, 

 and are already well cared for by their respective Governments. 



(c) EXPORT OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND ETHNO- 

 LOGICAL SPECIMENS. 



The following resolution was carried : — ■ 



"It is approved that such steps be taken as may be deemed 

 necessary to enforce the existing law with regard to the 

 exportation of anthropological material, and, further, 

 to prevent the indiscriminate exportation of other 

 anthropological and ethnological specimens from any 

 part of the Cemmonwealth." 



