[Editor: This article, regarding the White Australia Policy, was published in The Australian Worker (Sydney, NSW), 1 December 1943.]
Editorial.
Not for the Melting Pot
No principle of the Australian Labor Movement since it was first inscribed on the Labor Party’s platform has been more jealously guarded and so sedulously observed as that of a White Australia.
No principle has been more viciously assailed by our capitalist exploiters; but down through the years no principle has been more widely and generously recognised by our friends.
The policy of White Australia was written into the first statement of the Labor Party’s Platform, and from the very commencement it has been fervently and resolutely stated and restated at each succeeding Conference.
It may even be said to have had its beginnings in that great industrial era which established on the historic field of Eureka the basic rights of the individual, and which at a later stage, in the strike camps of New South Wales and Western Queensland, gave expression to their economic rights, and established for the workers a white man’s standard of existence.
Sometimes it has been suggested, unhappily, by dilettante statesmen and mischievous divines, in the interests of big pastoral companies and other exploiters, that our policy of White Australia should be jettisoned or watered down to serve their avaricious ends.
On occasions also it has been ridiculed by feather-brained and reckless “proletarians” pandering to the international prejudices of Pan-Pacific Conferences, but, generally speaking, the principle has been accepted by people who have been able to appreciate its economic significance and background as well as its racial advantages.
In view of these circumstances it came as a great surprise last week to learn that the perinatetic Commonwealth official who was formerly General Secretary of the Australian Railways Union, and who had recently been appointed senior research officer of the Department of Post-War Reconstruction, in a lecture to the Y.M.C.A. in Sydney, was reported to have said that “if Australia believed in a new world it must be prepared to throw into the melting-pot its ideals,” and “the White Australia policy should be restated in such a way that it was not an insult to the rest of the world.”
Immediately on top of this it was reported from Canberra that four sub-committees had been set up by the Inter-departmental Committee on Migration to investigate all aspects of Australia’s migration problems.
It was stated that the principal function of the Full Committee would be to recommend what lines the Government’s policy on migration should take after the war, and included in the sub-committees’ investigations would be the White Australia Policy.
When the report of Lloyd Ross’s luncheon address to the Y.M.C.A. was mentioned to Prime Minister Curtin he said that the only attack he knew “on Australia’s traditional policy” was that being made by the Japanese. That policy had been in danger since December 7, 1941, and until that attack is disposed of the policy is in danger. He knew of no other grounds.
That is very assuring in view of the direct menace to “Australia’s traditional policy” which the senior research officer of the Department of Post-War Reconstruction had indicated, and which, with “all its ideals” and policies of migration and tariffs, he said that “Australia must be prepared to throw into the melting-pot.”
So sensitive is the public mind just now, and so distrustful are the majority of the people of so many of the alleged experts who are departmentally directing our wartime economics and kindred matters, that quite a number of prominent Trade Union leaders and parliamentary representatives made vigorous public protects against the suggestion that Australia’s White Australia Policy must be thrown into the melting-pot.
Away back in the eighteen sixties and seventies miners and pastoral workers, in nearly every Australian colony, fought with great grit and determination against the attempt of the mineowners and wool kings to replace white men with Chinese coolies and Asiatics.
The White Australia Policy, it will thus be seen, has its roots deep down in our soil and deep down in the hearts of our people, all of whom are prepared to extend the hand of friendship and fraternalism to the heroic people of China, but who are nonetheless anxious and determined to maintain their own economic standards and national integrity come what may.
J.S.H.
Source:
The Australian Worker (Sydney, NSW), 1 December 1943, p. 1
Editor’s notes:
Asiatic = of or relating to Asia; someone whose ethnic background is from Asia, especially Eastern Asia; an Asian person, an Oriental person
Commonwealth = the government of the Commonwealth of Australia, i.e. the federal government 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
Curtin = John Curtin (1885-1945), journalist, trade union leader, Labor Party politician, and Prime Minister of Australia (1941-1945); he was born in Creswick (Vic.) in 1885, led Australia as Prime Minister for several years during the Second World War, and died (whilst serving as PM) in Canberra (ACT) in 1945
See: 1) Geoffrey Serle, “John Curtin (1885–1945)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “John Curtin”, Wikipedia
December 7, 1941 = the date of a surprise attack by the Japanese against Pearl Harbour (Hawaii) and several other targets; the commencement date of a war waged by the Japanese Empire against the British Empire and the USA, being a large element of the Second World War (1939-1945)
See: “Attack on Pearl Harbor”, Wikipedia
dilettante = an amateur or dabbler; someone who engages in an area or field as a hobby, as an amusement, or as a matter of casual or superficial interest, and whose knowledge and understanding of it is not likely to be high (compared to a professional, who is paid to work in an area or field, with appropriately training, and a high level of knowledge and understanding)
Eureka = the Eureka goldfield (Ballarat, Victoria), where the Battle of the Eureka Stockade took place on 3 December 1854
Y.M.C.A. = Young Men’s Christian Association
See: “YMCA”, Wikipedia
[Editor: Changed “that of A White Australia” to “that of a White Australia”.]
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