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two years the mother goes back into service so that it doesn’t really matter if she has half a dozenchildren (quoted by Choo 1989 on pages 49-50).‘Biological absorption’By the 1930s Neville had refined his ideas of integrating Indigenous people intonon-Indigenous society. His model was a biological one of ‘absorption’ or ‘assimilation’,argued in the language of genetics. Unlike the ideology of racial purity that emerged inGermany from eugenics, according to which ‘impure races’ had to be prevented from‘contaminating’ the pure Aryan race, Neville argued the advantages of ‘miscegenation’between Aboriginal and white people.The key issue to Neville was skin colour. Once ‘half-castes’ were sufficiently whitein colour they would become like white people. After two or three generations theprocess of acceptance in the non-Indigenous community would be complete, the oldergenerations would have died and the settlements could be closed.Neville claimed that the settlements prepared Indigenous children to be ‘absorbed’into non-Indigenous society. He argued that for the absorption process to work properlyhis powers needed to be extended to all children with any Indigenous background. Thegrandiose nature of his ‘vision’ contrasted starkly with the reality of life in thechronically under-funded settlements.I visited the Moore River Settlement several times [in the 1930s]. The setting was a poor one withno advantage for anyone except isolation. The facilities were limited and some of them weremakeshift. The staff were inadequate both in numbers and qualification. The inmates disliked theplace. It held no promise of a future for any of them and they had little or no satisfaction in thepresent. It was a dump (Hasluck 1988 page 65).Opposition and dissentPublic reaction to Neville’s ideas was mixed. The segregation of Aboriginal peoplehad been actively supported by non-Indigenous people. Neville’s support for‘miscegenation’ was in a different category. ‘[A] variety of harsh words were expressedabout the Chief Protector’s outrageous suggestion that marriages between black andwhite (because if it was out in the open it would have to be marriage) should becondoned’ (Jacobs 1990 page 195).In the early 1930s allegations of slavery, mistreatment of Aborigines and abuse ofAboriginal women appeared in the local and international press. Among them was aseries of articles by Mary Bennett attacking the administration of Aboriginal affairs. Thepressure of this publicity forced the government to establish a Royal Commission into theconditions of Aborigines, headed by a Perth magistrate, H D Moseley. In evidence to theCommission, Bennett attacked the practice of removing children from their mothers.They are captured at all ages, as infants in arms, perhaps not until they are grown up, they are notsafe until they are dead (quoted by Jacobs 1990 on page 234).Bessie Rischbieth also gave evidence to the Moseley Commission arguing that