[Editor: This article, regarding the Immigration Restriction Bill, was published in The Bendigo Advertiser (Bendigo, Vic.), 26 July 1901. When it became law, the Immigration Restriction Act formed the foundation of the White Australia Policy.]
Immigration Restriction Bill.
The Federal Immigration Restriction Bill has been circulated among members of the Commonwealth Parliament. By its provisions the various State Acts on the subject are repealed.
The principal clause prohibits the landing of any immigrant who is unable to write 50 words in the English language, in the presence of the officer appointed for the purpose; any person who is likely to become a charge on the community; any idiot or insane person; any person suffering from a contagious disease; or any person who has been convicted of crime.
Exemptions may be made by the Minister for External Affairs, and the Act is not to apply to the King’s land or sea forces.
The kanaka labor traffic will not be affected by the bill, as it is intended to introduce a separate measure to deal with this.
Source:
The Bendigo Advertiser (Bendigo, Vic.), 26 July 1901, p. 3
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
bill = a proposed law, or an amendment to an existing law
See: “Bill (law)”, Wikipedia
charge = burden, liability, or load; duty or responsibility; care, custody, or supervision; regarding someone whose existence or livelihood requires that a person or organisation be put in charge of that someone (to look after them, to care for or provide for them, or to give them financial support)
Commonwealth Parliament = the parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, i.e. the federal parliament of Australia
idiot = a mentally retarded person; someone with the mental capacity of a young child; someone with low general intelligence; someone with a severe learning disability; a foolish, stupid, or weak-minded person
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
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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