[Editor: This untitled article, regarding the Immigration Restriction Bill, is an extract from the general news section published in The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 13 August 1901. When it became law, the Immigration Restriction Act formed the foundation of the White Australia Policy.]
[“Australia was given to the free Australian people”]
“Australia was given to the free Australian people,” declares Mr. Barton, “for them to administer their own way.” This is true, but it should be added that the unexpressed, though understood, obligation is that we should administer the country in accordance with the familiar, inherent, high traditions of our race. We Australians should never so administer Australia as to cause the parent country to blush for us.
The fine round, sonorous words of Mr. Barton, however well they may be calculated to earn a platform cheer, are, in the light of reason and humanity, no justification whatever for the particular provisions of the Immigration Restriction Bill which are protested against by ship-owners and others.
The provision most objected to is that requiring every immigrant to write any fifty words of English that may be dictated to him — a provision which, if literally applied, would have shut out many of the pioneers who proved themselves worthy, courageous, and successful settlers, and whose memory is held in well-deserved honour by their descendants. In these days, no doubt, the test would stop few of the British race; but it would stop, and we suppose it is meant to stop, any ordinary German or French or Scandinavian immigration.
One part of Victoria, its north-west comer, is largely occupied by settlers who would have been stopped if such a law had been applied to them when they first migrated; yet these settlers have been diligent and law-abiding citizens, and their sons and daughters are as ardent Australians and as loyal subjects as any to be found amongst us. And America, it may be pointed out, would occupy a very different position from the grand situation of to-day if she had barred her doors as we are now asked to do. Indeed, the great movement to America to-day is not British, but German, and few indeed are the people in the States who do not welcome their Teuton cousins.
It so happens that there is not a sign or a symptom of a German or a French or a Scandinavian immigration to Australia, and consequently we are not called upon in any way to legislate against friendly personal intercourse with the great nations of the world. There does not seem to-day the remotest possibility of our nationality being endangered by a rush from the European nationalities.
It is an important consideration that no British Government would willingly insult the great peoples of Europe by legislation of the kind proposed here, and that we ought not to press the British Government to place itself in a false position to friends and allies. Are we first to cold-shoulder foreign countries in a manner unheard of elsewhere, and then to ask Great Britain to bear the onus?
The amendment proposed is that the immigrant shall be required to write the 50 words in some European language, and this would secure that the immigrant is an educated person of a white man’s race. Australia at her present stage should seek for no more.
Source:
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 13 August 1901, p. 4 (columns 6-7)
Editor’s notes:
Barton = Edmund Barton (1849-1920); judge, politician, and first Prime Minister of Australia (1901-1903); he was born in Glebe (Sydney, NSW) in 1849, and died in Medlow Bath (Blue Mountains, NSW) in 1920
See: 1) Martha Rutledge, “Sir Edmund (Toby) Barton (1849–1920)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Edmund Barton”, Wikipedia
cold-shoulder = (also spelt: cold shoulder) to ignore or snub someone; to treat someone with coldness or indifference
onus = responsibility, duty; a burden, obligation, or task which is difficult, disagreeable, or unpleasant; a legal obligation; a burden of proof
parent country = (in an historical Australian context) Great Britain; can also refer to England specifically (similar to the phrases “mother country” and “mother land”)
race = nationality; people of a particular national or ethnic origin (distinct from the historical and/or common usage of “race” referring to a sub-species of humans, such as Caucasians, Mongoloids, and Negroids, or Europeans, Asians, and Africans)
sonorous = making a sound (or capable of making a sound) which is pleasantly deep, full, resonant, rich; language or verse which is high-sounding, imposing, impressive, powerful, rich; grandiloquent, high-flown, wordy
the States = in the context of America, “the States” refers to the United States of America
Teuton = a German person; something that is German in origin or style
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
[Editor: The quotation marks within a quotation (placed at the start of each typographical line, as a matter of publishing style) have been removed.]
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