[Editor: This article, regarding Premier Philp (of Queensland) and the federal Immigration Restriction Bill, was published in The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 14 September 1901. When it became law, the Immigration Restriction Act formed the foundation of the White Australia Policy.]
A nigger-state politician’s extraordinary yearning for a White Australia.
The immigration into the Commonwealth of the persons described in any of the following paragraphs of this section (hereinafter called “prohibited immigrants”) is prohibited, namely:— (a) Any person who, WHEN ASKED TO DO SO BY AN OFFICER, fails to write out and sign in the presence of the officer a passage of fifty words in length in the English language dictated by the officer. — Immigration Restriction Bill, Clause 4.
Last week Premier Philp, of Queensland, lodged his formal protest and objection against the above clause — which is practically the only debatable clause — in the Federal Immigration Restriction Bill. Philp, this time, is not ostensibly wailing about his prospectively-lost nigger. It is the white immigrant that he professes to be troubled about, and the wail of Philp (who is a crude and tangled person and puts about 117 words in a single sentence) is as follows:
Had such a test been in application here at an earlier period a large number of those who have contributed most to the industrial progress of Queensland would have been excluded from admission to her territory. I refer especially to our German and Scandinavian settlers, whose utility as colonists has been such as to render it very desirable that the introduction of immigrants from Germany, Scandinavia, and other European countries, should not only not be checked, but should in every way be encouraged. That the proposed test will operate to the discouragement, and even to the virtual cessation of immigration from those countries to this part of the world is too obvious to require argument, and this Government would all the more strongly object to the imposition of a test, which, while it excluded a class of settlers who would be a great acquisition to the community, would, at the same time, admit numbers of individuals belonging to less civilised races, whose sole qualification would be their ability to pass a certain superficial language examination, but who would be devoid of the very qualities which would render those other “prohibited immigrants” a valuable factor in the development of our industries.
I would, therefore, anxiously commend to your consideration the desirableness of either withdrawing the sub-section referred to, or of modifying it in such a way as will prevent it operating to the exclusion of European immigrants, against whom no objection can be made, except their ignorance, on arrival, of the language of the country.
All over Australia, just now, the Black and Yellow Labor advocates are travelling on the same thin and silly pretence which Philp embodies in the above letter. Some of them are interested knaves who, to their own full knowledge, are trying to mislead the people by informing them that the Immigration Restriction Bill contains provisions which are not in it, and which no sane or sober individual ever dreamt of putting in it. Some other of the objectors are just fools, on whom the English language is wasted. The rest are dull and imitative persons, who write frantically to the papers on hearsay, and without personal investigation.
It is one of the misfortunes of this country that it has to give a vote to persons like Philp, whose lack of an ordinary capacity for comprehending large print is thinly disguised by a black coat and a tall hat and a certain social status. This is assuming that Philp’s objection is an honest one — which is a highly improbable assumption.
When clause 4 of the Immigration Restriction Bill was drafted, the Commonwealth Government was in a difficult situation. What it and the party it represented really desired was to insert a clause somewhat to this effect:—
The black, yellow, or brown person from Africa, Asia, or Polynesia shall not be allowed to enter the Commonwealth on any terms whatever.
Unfortunately, however, Australia is not a free country. It is part of an Empire, the population of which is something like 90 per cent. nigger. It is a section of the greatest nigger State in the world, and the policy of Britain is largely dictated by its nigger interests and by nigger considerations. And the British Government has broadly intimated that no such clause as the above would receive the royal sanction. It insists on keeping up the pretence that the Anglo-Saxon type isn’t worth preserving, and that nobody wants to preserve it; that the Anglo-Saxon traditions don’t amount to anything, and that it isn’t worth while to be white.
But it has intimated that the black man may be kept out obliquely, by an educational test, provided the test doesn’t profess to be aimed at him directly and exclusively. It explained this matter to Natal years ago, and it explains the same matter to Australia now. So the educational test was devised as a necessary concession to the prejudices of a race which denies its colored subjects all semblance of self-governing powers because they are inferior, and yet professes to be shocked at any suggestion of their inferiority.
Of course, as a matter of strict honesty, Clause 4 should have read somewhat after this fashion:—
The immigration into the Commonwealth of the persons described in any of the following paragraphs of this section (hereinafter called “prohibited immigrants”) is prohibited namely:—
(a) Any person who, when asked to do so by an officer, fails to write out and sign in the presence of the officer a passage of fifty words in length in the English language dictated by the officer.
(b) The immigrant has only to write out the passage when asked to do so by an officer. The officer will be confidentially instructed as to when he is to ask and when he isn’t. He will not ask the desirable European immigrant on any account. But the Asiatic and African will be met with a passage of such complexity and erudition and with such large polysyllables in it that he will go down every time.
The addition of sub-section b would have brought the matter within even Premier Philp’s comprehension, supposing Premier Philp is the simple, gushing child of Nature that he professes to be. But, unhappily, it would also have made the clause just the kind of clause which the nigger-loving British Government has declared to be inadmissible.
It would have burst up the pious hypocrisy about treating the black man as an equal and a brother. It would have uncovered the fact which Joseph Chamberlain insists on veiling with the cloak of snuffle and the thin rag of concealment — that Australia wants to remain white, and that it has just the same objection to seeing its people intermarry with Asiatics as the British royal family has to intermarriage with the Jap. royal family, or as Chamberlain himself would have to seeing his daughter wedded to a negro.
The clause as it stands is a purely permissive one, which allows a test to be applied, but doesn’t order that it shall be applied indiscriminately. If Premier Philp and his fellow nigger advocates can’t understand such a simple thing so simply expressed, then their mental condition is barren in the extreme. It is nearly certain, however, that they do understand it, and their affected grief about shutting out the desirable German, Scandinavian, Frenchman, Italian or Spaniard who is not going to be shut out is only a dull hypocrisy.
It has been broadly intimated to this country that legislation professing to exclude the Asiatic, simply as an Asiatic, will be vetoed in England, and nobody knows that fact better than Philp. To propose an educational test, and then openly exclude European races from the test as Philp demands, would acknowledge the measure as one for the exclusion of Asiatics, and destroy its chance of gaining the royal assent, and of that fact also Philp is aware.
And it is impossible for the Federal Parliament to give Philp an open and public and definite assurance that the Act won’t be applied to Europeans without publicly branding it as an Act for the exclusion of Asiatics and other niggers, merely because they are Asiatics and other niggers, as that public intimation would probably bring the royal veto down on the measure. Philp is also aware of this, or, if he isn’t, he is such a painfully clumsy and ignorant person that his existence as a public character is a calamity.
Under these circumstances, Philp stands forth as a person who holds a brief for the Chinaman, but hasn’t the courage to say so — with the reservation that he may, as an act of charity, be alternatively regarded as a person of limited understanding.
Premier Philp is not troubled, so far as concerns the Immigration Restriction Bill, about his Kanaka, said to be essential to the Queensland sugar industry, for the Bill does not apply to the Kanaka; that undesirable islander is to be separately dealt with.
Neither is he troubled, as he pretends, about the desirable European immigrant, unless he is the boss ignoramus among the six State Premiers. The other States are equally interested in admitting the desirable European, but recognising that he will come in just as before, and having no Chinese interests in the background, they are content. The solitary dissentient is Philp, the friend of the Hindoo, the Chow, the Japanese, Manila-man, and every other cheap and objectionable colored alien. And Philp, in his alleged anxiety about the desirable white immigrant whose exclusion has never been contemplated, wants the measure put in a shape which, as Australia has already been informed, would ensure its rejection in England. Where- upon Philp’s beloved Asiatic would continue to arrive in shoals, without Philp being responsible for his arrival. While Philp’s black man poured in Philp would pose as the man who was more anxious than all other politicians to let in lots of desirable white men, and to use them as materials to build up a White Australia, and out of his alleged intense anxiety for a White Australia his beloved Black Australia and Piebald Australia would boom greatly.
When the boss of the great Black Labor State becomes so anxious to let in the white man (whom nobody proposed to obstruct) that he can’t bear to take the only immediately available means of keeping the black man out, it isn’t good to take nigger-loving politicians too seriously.
Source:
The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 14 September 1901, p. 8
Editor’s notes:
Act = an Act of parliament, a law (in its written form, a law is called a “statute”)
See: 1) “Act of parliament”, Wikipedia
2) “Statute”, Wikipedia
affected = pretended, put on (i.e. put on a false or misleading act or exterior); acted, communicated, or spoke in such a way as to give an artificial, false, or misleading impression; took on a style of appearance, behaviour, conduct, or speech which was not genuine, to give a false impression, especially so as to increase social standing (such as using an insincere or pretentious manner to give an impression of being cultured or wealthy)
Asiatic = of or relating to Asia; someone whose ethnic background is from Asia, especially Eastern Asia; an Asian person, an Oriental person
Bill = a proposed law, or an amendment to an existing law
See: “Bill (law)”, Wikipedia
Black = of or relating to Africans, South Asians (from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, etc.), Pacific Islanders, or any dark-skinned people; (in the context of Australia) of or relating to the Australian Aborigines
Black Labor State = a reference to Queensland, where thousands of Kanakas (Pacific Islanders) were used as cheap labour on many sugar plantations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
boss ignoramus = the most ignorant person (i.e. someone who severely lacks knowledge) of a group or set of people; the most foolish or stupid person of a group or set of people
Chinaman = someone whose ethnic background is from China (especially referring to a Chinese man); a Chinese person
Chow = a Chinese person (can also refer to something that is Chinese in origin or style, e.g. a “Chow restaurant”)
Commonwealth = the Commonwealth of Australia; the Australian nation, federated on 1 January 1901
Commonwealth Government = the government of the Commonwealth of Australia, i.e. the federal government of Australia
Empire = in the context of early Australia, the British Empire
See: “British Empire”, Wikipedia
go down = lose, be defeated
Hindoo = an archaic spelling of “Hindu” (a follower of the religion of Hinduism)
islander = (in the context of labourers on sugar plantations in early Australia) a Pacific Islander (workers originating from the Pacific islands were also known as “kanakas”)
Jap. = abbreviation of “Japanese”; a Japanese person (could be used in a singular sense to refer to an individual Japanese person, as well as in a collective sense to refer to Japanese in general)
Joseph Chamberlain = Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914), British politician; he was born in Camberwell (Surrey, England) in 1836, served as the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for the Colonies (1895-1903), and died in Birmingham (England) in 1914
See: “Joseph Chamberlain”, Wikipedia
Kanaka = a Pacific Islander employed as an indentured labourer in various countries, such as Australia (especially in Queensland), British Columbia (Canada), Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu; in Australia the kanakas were mostly used on the sugar plantations and cotton plantations in Queensland (the word “kanaka” derives from the Hawaiian word for “person” or “man”)
See: 1) “Australian South Sea Islanders”, State Library of Queensland
2) “Kanaka”, Encyclopaedia Britannica
3) “AGY-2566 | Royal Commission of Enquiry into certain cases of Alleged Kidnapping of Natives of the Loyalty Islands, in the years 1865 – 1868; and the state and probable results of Polynesian Immigration”, Research Data Australia
4) Keith Windschuttle, “Why Australia had no slavery: The islanders”, Quadrant, 19 June 2020
5) “Digitised @ SLQ – Islanders speak out about deportation in 1906”, State Library of Queensland, 15 August 2013
6) “Kanaka (Pacific Island worker)”, Wikipedia
knave = a deceitful, dishonest, or unprincipled man; (archaic) a boy, especially a boy servant; (archaic) an adult male servant; (archaic) a male underling
Manila-man = a Filipino man (a man from the Philippines); a Filipino; derived from Manila, the capital city of the Philippines (also spelt: Manilaman, Manillaman; the latter word is based upon “Manilla”, an archaic spelling of “Manila”)
Natal = a British colony in south-east Africa, created in 1843 when the British took over the Natalia Republic (1839-1843, a Boer republic); in 1910 Natal became the Province of Natal, as part of the Union of South Africa
See: 1) “Colony of Natal”, Wikipedia
2) “Natal (province)”, Wikipedia
nigger = a black person; someone of black African racial background; in an historical Australian context, “nigger” could refer to 1) an Australian Aborigine, 2) a Pacific Islander, also known as a kanaka, 3) someone of black African racial origin, also known as a negro, or 4) someone of black Central Asian racial origin, such as people from India (“nigger” is usually regarded as a derogatory term, except that it was often used as a neutral term in historical practice, and except when used by or between people of a black racial background)
per cent. = an abbreviation of “per centum” (Latin, meaning “by a hundred”), i.e. an amount, number, or ratio expressed as a fraction of 100; also rendered as “per cent” (without a full stop), “percent”, “pct”, “pc”, “p/c”, or “%” (per cent sign)
Philp = Sir Robert Philp (1851-1922), businessman, politician, and Premier of Queensland (1899-1903, 1907-1908); he was born in Glasgow (Scotland) in 1851, came to Australia in 1862, and died in Brisbane (Qld.) in 1922
See: 1) W. Ross Johnston, “Sir Robert Philp (1851–1922)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Robert Philp”, Wikipedia
polysyllable = a word with several syllables (“poly” derives from the Ancient Greek “polús”, meaning “many” or “much”; “syllable” derives from the Ancient Greek “sullabḗ”, and “sullambánō”, meaning “I gather together”); a word with only one syllable is a monosyllable (described as monosyllabic); a word with two syllables is a bisyllable (bisyllabic), also known as a disyllable (disyllabic); a word with three syllables is a trisyllable (trisyllabic); a polysyllable (polysyllabic) has been variously defined as a word with more than one, two, three syllables, although usually referring to more than three
See: 1) “polysyllabic: adjective”, Merriam-Webster [“having more than one and usually more than three syllables”]
2) “Definition of ’polysyllable’”, Collins [“a word consisting of more than two syllables”]
3) “polysyllable: noun”, Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries [“a word of several (usually more than three) syllables”]
4) “polysyllable”, The Free Dictionary [“A word of more than two and usually more than three syllables”]
5) “polysyllabic”, Dictionary.com [“consisting of several, especially four or more, syllables, as a word”]
6) “Syllable”, Wikipedia [“may refer either to a word of more than three syllables or to any word of more than one syllable”] (archived 12 May 2024)
shoal = a school of fish, a large group of fish; a large group of sea animals (of the same type); a large group or crowd of humans; a large group of things
Yellow = a reference to something that is Asian (especially Chinese) with regards to ethnicity, origin, or style
[Editor: Changed “and that public intimation” to “as that public intimation”.]
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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