[Editor: This article, regarding the White Australia Policy, was published in The Daily Telegraph (Launceston, Tas.), 28 March 1908.]
A White Australia
The policy defended.
And luminously explained.
The Agent-General for New South Wales (Mr T. A. Coghlan) wrote recently to “The Times” as follows:
The Australian policy in regard to the colored races has recently been the subject of a large amount of criticism in England, mostly of an adverse character, coming not merely from irresponsible correspondents, but from leading journals of all shades of political opinion. Under the heading of “The Asiatic Difficulty,” “The Times” leader of January 2 last contained the following statement:
“Though we have parted almost completely with Imperial control over the self-governing Colonies, chiefly for want of any consistent Colonial policy or any statesmen to work it, we are not altogether without the means of safeguarding our own interests or of insisting upon reasonable compromises. The Colonies that most loudly proclaim their determination to be white countries depend absolutely upon the protection of the Mother Country for their power to remain white. Without that protection how long could Australia, for example, exclude the Japanese? Not for six months after the Japanese made up their minds that settling grounds in Australia were worth an expedition. Since we are ultimately responsible for any high-handed action that Australia may take, and since we are expected to shield Australia from the natural consequences, we have a right to do something more than utter feeble verbal protests.”
The simultaneous recrudescence of difficulties in dealing with Asiatics in Natal, the Transvaal, Canada, and other parts of the British dominions has almost persuaded the people of this country that these difficulties are new. So far, however, as Australia is concerned, they are far from new; indeed, they date back over 50 years, and it is not too much to say that, if colored immigration had not then been inhibited, Australia would not now be a white man’s territory.
The question of colored immigration to Australia was first mooted about the year 1841, when land-owning colonists were anxious to avoid payment of what they were pleased to call the exorbitant wage demanded by white laborers, such exorbitant wage being only slightly above English rates. The employment of colored labor from the Western Pacific islands was at first greatly in favor, and several shipments were introduced; but the islanders did not make good shepherds, and the local Legislature interfered to prevent what it regarded as an attempt to establish a new slave trade.
It was then proposed to import hill coolies from India — a proposal which caused the utmost indignation among the free laborers of the colony, and was formally disapproved by her Majesty’s Government in 1843, Lord Stanley refusing his sanction to the project, not from any sympathy with the desire of Australian workmen to maintain their standard of wages, but from motives of humanity towards the coolies.
The color difficulty did not present itself again until after the discovery of gold, when numerous Chinese entered the Colonies and incurred the deep aversion of miners, especially on the alluvial camps in Victoria, Queensland, and New South Wales. These Chinese were not aggressive, at all events in an offensive way, but the abominations of their camps, their want of contribution to the well-being of the community, as well, it must be confessed, as their industry and success, were factors in making them odious to Europeans. The Governments of the various Colonies protected the Chinese from injury, but it was recognised that the prejudice against them was both ineradicable and justifiable on the part of men endeavoring to build up a high standard of wages, comfort, and civilisation for the laboring classes — a standard which could never be established while they had in their midst numerous Chinese content to live on rice and lodge in insanitary hovels, where they followed alien ways offensive to Europeans.
There were disturbances and ill-treatment of Chinese at various places in Victoria, notably on the Ovens River in 1857, and in 1860 riots of a serious character broke out at the Burrangong, or Lambing Flat, Goldfields in New South Wales.
In the meantime Victoria had passed a Chinese immigration restriction law, and in 1860 the New South Wales Legislative Assembly affirmed by resolution that “the vast immigration of the Chinese was injurious to the colony morally, socially, and politically,” and in 1861 legislation on the Victorian model was passed. It was enacted that no vessel should be permitted to bring to the colony more than one Chinese for every ten tons of the ship’s tonnage; a tax of £10 was to be paid by each Chinese on landing, and during his residence he was to pay an annual poll tax of £4. Queensland followed with an Act on the same lines, but the New South Wales law was repealed in 1867, as the feeling which had arisen out of the deep hostility of the mining population to all colored races had subsided with the decline of alluvial mining.
Several attempts to re-impose restrictions on Chinese were defeated in the interest of the employing classes who desired cheap labor, but in 1878 there was an alarming increase in the number of Chinese entering the colony, and as the influx continued unabated, public feeling compelled Parliament in 1881 to pass remedial legislation. The poll tax of £10 was re-established and shipmasters were allowed to carry only one Chinese passenger for each 100 tons of their ship’s tonnage. The law was for a time effective and the immigration of Chinese declined considerably, but owing partly to lax administration, but mainly to the ability of the Chinese to evade the law, the number of arrivals increased again so rapidly that by 1887 it was as high as it was before the restriction legislation was passed, and anti-Chinese agitation was again rife throughout the country.
Sir Henry Parkes, in excess of his legal powers, prohibited the landing of Chinese, who successfully appealed to the law courts, with the result that fuel was added to the fire of agitation, which was reaching a dangerous stage, when Sir Henry Parkes called an intercolonial conference in Sydney. The conference learned with indignation that, while the self-governing colonies were doing their utmost to prevent Australia from being overrun with Asiatics, the Government of the Crown Colony of Western Australia was introducing Chinese immigrants at the public expense in order to provide employers with cheap labor.
It was unanimously agreed that the other colonies should jointly approach the Imperial Government with a view to procuring a reversal of the action of Western Australia.
The conference also agreed on recommendations for restrictive legislation, which recommendations were exceeded in severity by New South Wales, whose Parliament passed an Act imposing a poll tax of £100 and prohibiting vessels from carrying more than one Chinese passenger to every 100 tons.
Before federation, all the States, including Western Australia, under responsible government had Acts of varying stringency in force to restrict Chinese immigration, and on the establishment of the Commonwealth, legislation ostensibly designed to prevent the influx of undesirables was passed, imposing an education test on all immigrants. In practice, Europeans are not subjected to this test, but to all others it is so applied as to secure their absolute exclusion, unless the authorities otherwise direct. This method of excluding colored persons is Mr Chamberlain’s, and was adopted on his pressing representations by the first Commonwealth Parliament, which would have greatly preferred straight-forward prohibition.
That restriction in some form was needed is shown by the position of Queensland, where as late as 1901 the male colored population comprised one-seventh of the total adult males and was thus a serious menace to the industrial standard which white workers desired to maintain. The color problem in Queensland, which comparative nearness to Asia and the possession of much tropical territory tended to make more acute than in New South Wales and Victoria, was aggravated by the presence of Pacific Islanders or Kanakas. Private individuals had brought the first shipments of these without authority, and in a few years the traffic in Polynesian labor became so important a vested interest that, when the Government looked into the matter, prohibition was impossible in face of the strong political interest of the sugar industry, which clamored for cheap labor. The Government, therefore, felt it could do no more than regulate the traffic, which in the early days of “black-birding,” as it was called, was disgraced by scandalous cruelty to the natives.
Australia has no native difficulty of its own; its aborigines are few, scattered, and dying off; its troubles in the matter of colored population arise from its proximity to India and China, the Japanese element of the case being at present a negligible quantity. It occupies a position essentially different from any other portion of the Empire. It stands out of the course of the great trade routes of the world, remote from Europe, from which it is removed by 30 days’ steaming. On the other hand it is close to South-Eastern Asia, being seven days from India, ten days from China, and along its northern coast lie the great Indian archipelagoes, so close, indeed, that with unrestricted immigration it might easily find itself with a large Asiatic population absolutely out of all sympathy with Australian ideals, aliens in manners and religion, in sympathy and aspirations, with whom inter-marriage would be impossible, or if not impossible, most harmful — a population to be defended in case of aggression and useless and untrustworthy for the purpose of defence.
The most serious objection to the colored races is, of course, the ethnical; the economic objection might perhaps be waived with the other non-existent. In all Australian cities there are large communities of non-British Europeans who are greatly objected to on economic grounds, but whose presence is tolerated because they belong to the races with whom Australians may inter-marry, and who may thus ultimately become absorbed into the general population.
With colored races it is different. Australians have no wish to see reproduced in their country the conditions prevailing in the Southern States of America, or in those South American countries where mixed races predominate. They hold their territory as trustees for the British people in the first instance and for the white races generally, and in this they conceive they have a more noble idea of their Imperial responsibility than have any of their critics who so urgently demand the admission of the Asiatic.
There are, moreover, economic objections to the colored races which no Australian can ignore. To the Chinese, who is the person principally to he considered, the objection is that he is a producer and not a consumer. If the price of labor be determined by the cost of its maintenance or production, then the European, with his need for varied food, superior clothing, sanitary surroundings, comfortable lodging, and amusements, with like conditions for his wife and family, requires much larger wages than does the Chinese worker, and in competition must go to the wall — a fate he is not likely to accept in Australia without a desperate struggle. The Australian has won from the wilderness comparative comfort and contentment, conditions which he is persuaded would be jeopardised for all except the wealthy if the indiscriminate introduction of the Chinese were permitted.
And here it may be pointed out that “The Times” is in error in claiming that there is no objection by white populations to the Asiatic so long as he remains a “coolie doing work for the capitalist which the white man does not care to undertake, and doing it dirt cheap.” If there is any gradation in the Australian objections to the colored laborer, the strongest objection would be to the coolie, who, by his habit of living, is able to work dirt cheap and so reduce the standard of comfort which even the commonest of Australian workers are able to enjoy.
The part of Australia most favored by the partisans of black labor is the Northern Territory of South Australia, and the northern seaboard of Queensland, where there is much fine land and tropical produce grown in great profusion. But the average Australian asks himself who would gain by the employment of colored labor in the development of these territories.
The bulk of the white population would certainly not be beneficially affected, and over and above this it has yet to be demonstrated that the white man cannot work in the Australian tropics. The experience of other countries does not determine the question for us. What is true of Africa and America is not necessarily true of Australia, where it is found that occupation vastly improves the coast lands from the point of view of health, malarial fever retreating before the face of systematic cultivation.
Again, in what respect is the Chinese or Japanese more fitted by upbringing for work in a warm climate than is the native-born Australian? Taken as a whole the climate of Japan is a cold one; at Hakodate the temperature of the coldest months averages 27.5 Fahr., and at Tokio 36.0. Similarly at Shanghai in China, in the centre of the coast, the average of the coldest month is 25.7, and at Peking 26.6. Compare these temperatures with those of Sydney, where the average temperature of the coldest months is 52.3, Adelaide 51.7, Melbourne 49.2, or Brisbane, where, during the months of June, July, and August, the temperature averages 60.
When the Commonwealth determined to exclude Kanakas the cry went forth that the sugar industry of Queensland would be ruined, for Europeans could not work in the cane fields of the tropics, and would perish where the colored man could work with impunity. That the Kanaka could work with impunity in the cane fields is an assumption contrary to fact, for the death rate amongst Kanakas is 24 per thousand, which would be high for adults in the prime of life in any part of the world, and is extraordinary for Australia.
The death rate for adult Europeans in tropical Queensland is not more than 14 per thousand, and for persons of the same ages as the Kanakas about 11 per thousand, and even this rate would be lower if the Europeans were willing to change their habits to suit the climatic conditions. A large proportion of them persist in following in the tropics dietic customs acquired in colder climates, and it is alcohol, not malaria, that is the enemy. But even with the reluctance of whites to change their habits the cane industry did not fail with the withdrawal of the Kanakas; on the contrary the industry is sounder and more flourishing than ever before.
The law for the exclusion of the Kanakas came into force in 1901, at which time there were 13,170 acres of sugar cane cultivated by white labor (the majority being in the southern districts) and 82,530 acres cultivated by colored labor. Six years later the respective areas were 116,520 acres cultivated exclusively by whites, and 16,628 acres on which colored labor was employed, so that under the operation of the law 37,448 acres of new cane lands are cultivated; the area in which field labor is performed exclusively by whites has increased by 103,350 acres; and the area in which colored labor is employed has declined by 65,920 acres.
In 1902 the consumption of sugar in Australia was 84,000 tons of imported sugar and 93,000 tons of Australian sugar; this has now been changed to 8000 tons of imported sugar and 195,000 tons of Australian sugar, and during the current year it is confidently anticipated that no household sugar will be imported into Australia for home consumption. These excellent results have been achieved during a period of considerable unrest, and in the face of much opposition coming from persons who from long association with colored labor were persuaded that the employment of the white man in the cane fields was quite impossible.
The Northern Territory of South Australia does not, it must be confessed, show such excellent results; indeed, there has been little progress in spite of the efforts of the Government at Adelaide to develop the country. Stranger, however, is the fact, whose advocates of colored labor do not seem willing to consider, that during many years in which the Territory was open to receive colored population Chinese arrived only in very small numbers and mainly as indentured laborers.
The truth is the Asiatic is not a coloniser; he comes to reap where others have sown; he is willing to swarm into Melbourne, Sydney, or Brisbane, to undersell the Europeans already established there; and if the Northern Territory had had European population, it is safe to say there would also have been a large influx of Chinese and other Asiatics.
The Territory possesses magnificent soil and vast natural resources; its drawback is its isolation, and when that is destroyed and ready communication opened with the southern and eastern seaboards the day of the Northern Territory will dawn. Meanwhile, the colony will be preserved for European colonisation, for, contrary to the assertions made, the climate is not injurious to Europeans. As in the northern parts of Queensland so in the Northern Territory, when dietetic errors are avoided, the country is found to be healthy and the death-rate is not high.
Even under present conditions the death-rate of European males, as ascertained from the experience of the last decade, is 19.1 per thousand, which is not greater than that of several European countries, and few deaths are the result of what are ordinarily termed tropical diseases. During the last six years there have resided in the Territory from three to four hundred European women, amongst whom there have been only 19 deaths, giving an annual death-rate of 9.2 per thousand, which, though not in itself conclusive, may be taken as evidence of the healthiness of the Territory. It is, therefore, an idle cry that the whites of the Northern Territory are being slowly killed off by a climate for which they are not dermatically fitted by nature.
In any case what possible urgency is there for introducing colored labor at the present time? Australia has the centuries before it; if its people now make the error of permitting the introduction of Asiatics the blunder will be fatal and irreparable, whereas the course of finding out by experiment what the white man can do in the tropics is obviously the one dictated both by sanity and by safely. About this there is only one opinion in Australia, as may be seen from the press comments on “The Times” article of January last.
The best method of carrying out this policy without offending the susceptibilities of the Asiatic Powers is a problem that has engaged and still engages the attention of Australian statesmen, who do not despair of finding a solution consistent with their Imperial obligations and the courtesy due to friendly nations.
Source:
The Daily Telegraph (Launceston, Tas.), 28 March 1908, p. 10
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
Agent-General = the representative of the State of New South Wales in the United Kingdom, who is responsible for the promotion of the interests of New South Wales (especially economics and trade)
See: 1) “AGY-5133 | Agent-General’s Office (1787-1932) / New South Wales Government Office, London (1932-1999) / NSW Government Trade and Investment Office, London (1999- )”, Australian Research Data Commons
2) “Agent-General for New South Wales”, Wikipedia
alluvial = of or relating to alluvium containing heavy minerals (in an Australian context, specifically regarding alluvium containing gold); of or relating to alluvium: loose or unconsolidated sediment or soil (consisting of clay, dirt, gravel, sand, silt, etc.) left behind by the movement of water (creeks, rivers, floods, streams, etc.)
See: “Alluvium”, Wikipedia
Asiatic = of or relating to Asia; someone whose ethnic background is from Asia, especially Eastern Asia; an Asian person, an Oriental person
black-birding = (also spelt: blackbirding) the act or practice of obtaining people from the Pacific Islands (who were known as “kanakas”) by kidnapping them, luring them with false promises, or signing them up under contracts which were of dubious value; Pacific Islanders, or kanakas, were employed as indentured labourers 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
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
Commonwealth = the Commonwealth of Australia; the Australian nation, federated on 1 January 1901
Commonwealth Parliament = the parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia (i.e. the federal parliament of Australia)
coolie = a low-cost Asian worker, unskilled labourer, or indentured labourer, especially one of Chinese or Indian ethnicity (can be spelt with or without a capital letter: Coolie, coolie, although usually the latter; plural: Coolies, coolies); of or relating to coolie labour
Crown Colony = a colony ruled by a representative of the British Crown, i.e. ruled by a Governor acting under instructions of the British Government (distinct from a “free colony” which has “responsible government”, i.e. a “free colony” ruled by a parliament elected by British colonists)
See: “Crown colony”, Wikipedia
Fahr. = an abbreviation of “Fahrenheit” (a measurement of temperature)
See: “Fahrenheit”, Wikipedia
federation = the federation or union of the Australian colonies into the Commonwealth of Australia (which occurred on 1 January 1901)
dominion = (in the context of the British Empire) one of the British Dominions (Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa), being those countries of the British Empire which were self-governed
Henry Parkes = Sir Henry Parkes (1815-1896), the owner and editor of The Empire newspaper (Sydney), and Premier of New South Wales for five separate terms (1872-1875, 1877, 1878-1883, 1887-1889, 1889-1891)
See: 1) A. W. Martin, “Parkes, Sir Henry (1815–1896)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Henry Parkes”, Wikipedia
Imperial = in the context of the British Empire, of or relating to official elements of the British Empire (e.g. Imperial troops, the Imperial Government); of or relating to the British Empire
Imperial Government = in the context of early Australia, the British government
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
leader = the leading, first, or main editorial article in a newspaper, magazine, or periodical; a lead story
Lord Stanley = Edward Smith-Stanley (1799-1869), 14th Earl of Derby (known as Lord Stanley, 1834-1851), a Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1852, 1858-1859, 1866-1868); he was born in Knowsley (Lancashire, England) in 1799, and died in Knowsley (Lancashire, England) in 1869
See: “Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby”, Wikipedia
moot = open to argument or debate, subject to discussion (derived from a “moot”, also known as a “folkmoot” or “thing”, in Anglo-Saxon or historical times, being a communal assembly, gathering, or meeting where decisions were made in a village, area, or locality); debate, discuss; to bring up for consideration, debate, or discussion; an arguable or debatable matter or point (a debatable point, i.e. a moot point), which is not able to be resolved or solved; an issue or matter which lacks or has no practical consequence, relevance, or significance; a debate over an issue which no longer matters, i.e. a fruitless, irrelevant, or useless debate (e.g. arguing over whether to send a ship north or south, only to find out that it sank in deep waters the night before; officials in an organisation arguing over how to spend some funds, only to find out that the funds have been given to a different organisation)
See: 1) “moot”, Oxford Reference (Oxford University Press)
2) “moot”, Merriam-Webster
3) “moot (n.)”, Online Etymology Dictionary
4) David Marsh, “The meaning of ‘moot’ is a moot point – whichever variety of English you speak”, The Guardian, 16 Jan 2015
5) Keith Paul Bishop, “The meaning of moot is moot”, Allen Matkins, 2 August 2022
6) “What is a moot point? Examples, uses, and more”, Poised
7) “‘Moot Point’ or ‘Mute Point’?”, Merriam-Webster
8) Johnny Scott-Walker, “What is an Anglo-Saxon Moot?”, RuralHistoria, 27 November 2023
9) “Thing (assembly)”, Wikipedia
mooted = brought up for consideration, debate, or discussion; made, proven, or shown to be moot [see: moot]
Mother Country = (in the context of early Australia) Great Britain; can also refer to England specifically (can be rendered as “Mother Country” or “mother country”; can appear in a hyphenated form, “mother-country”)
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
the Northern Territory of South Australia = the Northern Territory of Australia, which was administered by the government of South Australia from 1863 to 1911
See: “Northern Territory”, Wikipedia
ostensibly = apparently, outwardly (of outward appearance), seemingly (regarding something which seems to have a certain nature, quality, or state of being on the surface)
partisan = in favour of or biased towards a particular activity, idea, or scheme; a person, group, or organisation which promotes or supports a particular activity, idea, or scheme; an adherent, devotee, follower, or supporter of a cause, ideology, idea, faction, group, movement, organisation, person, or party
poll tax = a tax of a fixed amount which is levied upon individuals (regardless of their income or financial position), normally only levied upon adults (a poll tax is often, but not always, connected to the right to vote) (also spelt “poll-tax”; also called a “head tax”)
Power = a country, kingdom, empire, sovereign state, or political entity which is considered to possess great international authority, or which has significant strength (regarding industrial capacity, military forces, political influence, or trade dealings, but especially regarding military strength), e.g. the Great Powers, the Axis Powers, the Allied Powers
recrudescence = the condition or state of something (especially something which is considered as negative or undesirable) breaking out again or renewing activity; something re-emerging, reoccurring, or reviving after a temporary abatement or suppression, becoming once again an active element; the condition or state being recrudescent; (in medicine) the acute recurrence or renewed activity of a disease or its symptoms, after a period of abatement or improvement
T. A. Coghlan = Timothy Augustine Coghlan (1855-1926), statistician, engineer, economic historian, and diplomat; he was born in Sydney (New South Wales) in 1855, and died in London (England) in 1926
See: 1) Neville Hicks, “Sir Timothy Augustine Coghlan (1855–1926)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Timothy Augustine Coghlan”, Wikipedia
Territory = (in the context of northern Australia) the Northern Territory
See: “Northern Territory”, Wikipedia
Tokio = an archaic spelling of Tokyo (the capital city of Japan)
Transvaal = the South African Republic (1856-1902), an independent Boer republic in Southern Africa, which was known as the Transvaal Republic; the Transvaal Colony, being the Transvaal region under British rule (1902-1910); the Province of Transvaal (1910-1994), a province of South Africa; the Transvaal, a region of southern Africa, an area situated in the north-east of modern South Africa (broadly-speaking, located to the north of the Vaal River)
See: 1) “Transvaal”, Wikipedia
2) “South African Republic”, Wikipedia
3) “Transvaal Colony”, Wikipedia
4) “Transvaal (province)”, Wikipedia
[Editor: Changed “or if impossible, most harmful” to “or if not impossible, most harmful”, “colony wil be preserved” to “colony will be preserved”.]
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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