[Editor: This poem is from the “Editorial Mill” column, published in The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 30 March 1901. The poem was a call to vote for the Labor Party and a White Australia in the first federal election in Australia (held on Friday 29 and Saturday 30 March 1901).]
A Last Word.
What about the coloured alien,
And the Chow and the Hindoo,
Men of Queensland asks Australia,
What do you intend to do?
Let the matter drag another
Ten or twenty years or so,
Or put down your foot in earnest,
Saying out they all must go?
Out from mill and shop and garden,
Hawkers, fossickers and cooks;
Wipe them once for all and ever,
From the Federal nation’s books.
“Fellow voters,” says Australia,
“Do not let yourself be gulled:
From the flock of White Australia,
Let the coloured sheep be culled.
“Yours it is to straightway settle
Up the matter once for all;
If you’ll lift you voice in earnest,
We will listen to your call.
“To the Federal Legislature,
Send along the Labour men;
And the coloured alien question
Will be solved for ever then.
White Australia asks that Queensland
Men shall let their voice be heard;
Asks that to the listening nation,
We shall speak the destined word.
White Australia asks the question,
Asks of me and asks of you,
In the Federal election
What do you intend to do?
Source:
The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), Saturday 30 March 1901, page 2
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