[Editor: This chapter is part of The White Australia Policy: The Rise and Fall of Australia’s Racial Ideology (2025).]
Appeasing the demands of the British Empire
Even though the aim of the White Australia Policy was to keep Australia racially white (that is, to have a population which was predominantly Caucasian or European), this fact was not made explicitly clear in the legislation passed in 1901. The reason for this was Australia’s relationship with the government of the United Kingdom.
All laws passed by the Australian parliament had to receive the Royal Assent, which was either granted by the Governor-General (the federal representative of the British monarch in Australia) or by the British monarch (in practice, following the advice of the British Prime Minister, Cabinet, or the Secretary of State for the Colonies).
The problem this situation created for the Australian government was that the United Kingdom was wary of upsetting the non-white sections of the British Empire (especially India) or annoying its non-white trading partners (especially Japan, with whom the UK had entered into a military defence agreement).
Because of these international considerations, the British government was loathe to give the royal assent to any Australian piece of legislation which was overtly racial in nature. Although some Australian colonial laws had been passed to stop Chinese immigration, the British had refused to give assent to some other colonial laws which were written with a racial basis.[1]
Hector Lamond, who was a leading figure with The Worker (a trade union newspaper based in New South Wales), and an Australian Labor Party politician, campaigned against coloured (non-white) immigration, saying that the British government had little interest in maintaining a white Australia, and therefore suggested that Australia needed to become a republic. He wrote in The Worker in 1895:
“Like the first approach of a repulsive disease, the colored agony made its appearance — a few brown spots upon the fringes of white Australia. … This invasion, peaceful though it be, can only progress at the expense of the white Australian nation we fondly hope is to be. … It needs no inspiration to foretell the result — the gradual supplanting of the white races
… To Britain it is, perhaps, a matter of small moment; to white Australia it is a death-struggle. … To defend ourselves against this aggression, we must create the Australian nation, for it is plain that the interests of Great Britain and our own are, in this matter, antagonistic. Therefore it is that the ideal of an Australian Republic should be kept ever before the workers of the continent and the sons of the soil, not so much because we want a place in the nations of the world as because we must have unfettered action in the interests of our own people and the fullest expansion of our national life.”[2]
If the Australian government became particularly upset with the Imperial government, regarding the British politicians refusing to pass an Australian law, they could have declared the country a republic, and then passed whatever laws they desired; but that was a move that the vast majority of Australian politicians would not have wanted (indeed, the majority of the Australian population would have been opposed to cutting the official connection with Britain).
The British had refused to allow a Bill (a proposed law) to stop non-white immigration into Natal (a British colony in South Africa); but the British then allowed Natal’s exclusionary immigration law, which was based upon a dictation test. As a consequence, the Natal method of immigration exclusion became a way for white British colonies to implement racial discriminatory immigration rules, without overtly discriminating against other races. Technically, the laws using a dictation test were non-racial, even though their racial intent was known to all; it was a diplomatic solution used to allow the colonies to discriminate, whilst simultaneously saving face for Britain’s non-white allies and trading partners.
Prime Minister Edmund Barton, advocating for the 1901 immigration law in the newly-created Australian parliament, explained that it was designed in such a way as to appease the desires of the British government. Barton said:
“the care of the British Government was not to embarrass its relations with its 300,000,000 or 400,000,000 of coloured subjects, and perhaps provoke resentment from those to whom it owed gratitude for their stand in the defence of the Empire, and not to permit to pass measures calculated to cause trouble, much or little, between England and other nations.
… the British Government … is a trustee for the whole Empire, of whom the white subjects are only one-eighth, and the peace of the Empire lies in its hands. While it will not resist the legitimate aspirations of any white self-governing country to preserve itself as white and its race as pure as they now are, it only asks and urges that that country shall take the steps it considers necessary to effect its object in a way which will enable the mother country to give its assent with a light heart, and not with that heaviness of heart which may be the precursor of a severance between us.
… I have said enough to show that a similar measure to that which is now proposed by the Government is admittedly effective in Natal, and that it has proved its effectiveness in Australia.
… The Bill which we propose will provide equal effectiveness so far as experience can guide us. There is no threat of injury to us if we take the course proposed, but certain delay and possible refusal, if that refusal is to be grounded upon the doctrine of the trusteeship of the head or seat of the Empire for the rest of the Empire, which doctrine was laid down in the course of our visit to England last year, and to that extent rightly and properly laid down.
There is that reserve power, that trusteeship in the head of the Empire — I mean the King, with his advisers, who are responsible to the whole of the Empire — which we cannot by any argument efface. We cannot say, “Because we ought to have this thing we must have it.”
Those who have to consider these matters at the other end of the world have to consider whether the foreign or internal relations of the Empire are threatened by such legislation, and, if not threatened, whether it has a tendency to embarrass them. If they come to a conclusion in the affirmative, they are not only not wronging us, but they are merely doing their duty to the Empire by refusing to assent to it.”[3]
However, there were some in the Australian parliament who wanted an openly exclusionist law. Chris Watson, leader of the Labor Party (and later to become the Labor Party’s first Prime Minister, in 1904) proposed in parliament that the immigration law should include a clause which explicitly stated that Asians and Africans should be excluded from immigrating to Australia. Watson said:
“the only effective way of dealing with the question at issue is by means of such an amendment as I have given notice of.
… I quite agree with the attitude taken up by the leader of the Opposition in explaining the decision of New South Wales with regard to the Immigration Restriction Act in that colony. I was one of those who consented to accept the Natal Act as the basis of a tentative proposal only, on the clear understanding that if it did not work effectively we would endeavour to make it effective, and we have now reached a stage at which it is necessary to have something which will answer our purpose effectively.
… in spite of all statistics the number of coloured aliens other than Chinese in that State is increasing. They are to be found in every country town, and in George-street, Sydney, a few weeks ago I saw a number of newly-arrived Hindoos who were just off the ship.
… I move —
That the following new paragraph be added, after the word “namely,” line 5: — (a) “Any person who is an aboriginal native of Asia, Africa, or of the islands thereof.”
That will leave the question of Pacific immigration to be dealt with as the Government propose in the Bill relating to kanakas. I did not intend to put the amendment in this shape originally, but I think it is necessary to make some reference to the islands of Asia and Africa, in order to prevent the Act being evaded.”[4]
Watson was not the only person who was opposed to the diplomatic subterfuge of using a dictation test to keep out non-white immigrants. His desire was echoed by other parliamentarians, as well as various newspapers around Australia.
In 1901 The Independent (Deniliquin, NSW), objected to the dictation test on the basis that the reason for it lay in diplomatic threats from Britain:
“We were in accord with the Federal Ministry in their endeavour to put some restriction on the influx of aliens by some means that would be least objectionable to Great Britain; and, at that time, we accepted the compromise of the education test as the best way out of a very difficult dilemma.
The Labour Party, and many of the Federal Oppositionists advocated strongly the direct and absolute restriction of all coloured races, and called the proposed Ministerial policy a “subterfuge.” There is no doubt that a subterfuge it is, but we doubt whether Mr Reid, were he in Mr Barton’s shoes, would bluntly legislate in a direction that would lead to inevitable collision with the Home authorities; and, therefore, while we believed that Mr Barton was acting on his own initiative in the matter, we supported the bill and the compromise — the necessary compromise, it seemed to us, — that it effected.
But a new and entirely different complexion has been put upon the matter by facts which have lately come to light. It is not too much to say that the practical acknowledgment of the Colonial office to dictate legislation to the Commonwealth, which the Federal Government has given, has come as a distinct and disagreeable shock to all Australians.
… Our support of Mr Barton’s actions must necessarily change, in view of the altered circumstances, to a direct reprehension of the placid and pusillanimous policy which had led him to accept, without a struggle, the dictums of Downing street. For, in Mr Chamberlain’s despatch, which is likely to become historical underneath the velvet glove of courteous phrases, lies the iron hand of threat.
… threats are dangerous things to deal in, as England should know by very bitter and humiliating experience. It was a threat — and on a subject, of much less importance than the purity of a nation — that caused the American War of independence.
… By this unique display of meekness Mr Barton pledged to a white Australia has handed over the destinies of the nation to be moulded by a man, who does not want to draw any “purely arbitrary” distinctions between the black man and the white.
… If the obsequious of the Federal Government be not withdrawn, and a plain intimation sent to the Home Government that Australia will legislate for her own safety in her own way, the incident may easily become the worst of precedents.”[5]
The Truth newspaper also stated that it was opposed to the façade of the dictation test, saying:
“What the majority of the people want is a White Australia on true lines, and if the Imperial Government will not pass a measure of that character they must be made to see and feel that the people of Australia will not tolerate interference with their domestic policy.”[6]
Australia, at the beginning of the 20th century, was very much tied to the British Isles. The overwhelming majority of Australia’s population were of British descent; most of the Australian Establishment considered themselves to be loyal to Britain (indeed, a significant number of them had been born in the UK); the bulk of the country’s trade was with Britain; and Australia’s waters were guarded by the Australian Squadron of the British Navy (being the country’s first line of defence).
In terms of military defence, Australia’s position as a part of the British Empire was a very real deterrent to any country (such as Japan) which might be perceived to have designs upon Australia (especially upon a politically independent and militarily weak Australia). Many saw British naval power as a guarantee of the continuance of the White Australia Policy.[7]
In the federal parliament, in 1907, Alfred Deakin explained that Australia was reliant upon Britain for its military protection. He said that the ships of the British Navy, which sailed under the flag of the British “white ensign”, were essential for Australia’s military defence:
“the British Empire itself and all its parts depend for their unity and guarantee of freedom upon the Navy. That is its first line of defence, and we in Australia are distinguished in this particular, because we must rely more upon it than any other part of the Empire. Ours is an island continent, and its best defence will be that which prevents an invader from ever setting his foot upon our shores.
… The Commonwealth is governed by a policy appropriately termed that of a “White Australia” because the “white ensign” flies all round our coast. Withdraw that, and peril would be instant.”[8]
For all of these reasons and more, most Australians did not want to “cut the painter” and sever ties with the British “motherland”.
Therefore, the Australian government decided to find a suitable way to restriction immigration that was diplomatically acceptable to the British government.
References:
[1] For example:
A) Coloured Races Restriction and Regulation Bill 1896 (NSW)
See: 1) “Immigration Restriction Act”, The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 9 June 1900, p. 3
2) “Coloured Races Restriction and Regulation Act 1896 No 42a”, Australasian Legal Information Institute [see: direct link to the PDF file]
3) “Coloured Races Restriction and Regulation Bill 1896”, Parliament of New South Wales
B) Sugar Works Guarantee Act Amendment Bill 1901 (Qld.)
See: 1) “Third day: Wednesday, July 3” [“Labour-in-Politics Convention”], The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 6 July 1901, p. 10
2) “Sugar Works Guarantee Act: Royal Assent withheld: Labour difficulties the reason”, The Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld.), 28 May 1901, p. 3 (Second Edition)
3) State of Queensland, Parliamentary Debates: Legislative Assembly: Official Hansard, 17 July 1901, pp. 35-38 [PDF pp. 13-16] [speech by Thomas Givens]
[2] “Federation and a white Australia”, The Worker (Sydney, NSW), 21 September 1895, p. 1
[3] Commonwealth of Australia, “Parliamentary Debates: House of Representatives: Official Hansard”, 1901 no. 39, 26 September 1901, p. 5229, 5233-5234
[4] Commonwealth of Australia, “Parliamentary Debates: House of Representatives: Official Hansard”, 1901 no. 39, 25 September 1901, pp. 5178-5181
Bede Nairn, “John Christian (Chris) Watson (1867–1941)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
“Chris Watson”, Wikipedia
[5] “Keep off the grass”, The Independent (Deniliquin, NSW), 11 October 1901, p. [2]
Also published in: The Temora Star (Temora, NSW), 12 October 1901, p. 2
[6] “The federal farce”, Truth (Sydney, NSW), 11 August 1901, p. 4, column 6
[7] “The Week”, The Leader (Melbourne, Vic.), 6 September 1902, p. 21, column 3 [“Australia’s security is dependent in the first instance upon the preponderance of British naval power”]
“An anti-Japanese novel”, The Bookfellow (Sydney, NSW), 30 November 1921, p. 184, column 2 [“the Japanese … have the naval power; they have the teeming people; only Britain’s diplomatic hand restrains them — till the time is ripe. It is sardonically amusing to hear people preaching White-Australia while reviling Britain — the foundation-stone of the White-Australian edifice.”]
“Australia’s defence” The Daily Advertiser (Wagga Wagga, NSW), 16 November 1935, p. 8 [“Lacking the population to constitute a formidable defence Australia is, therefore, reduced to dependency on her own armaments and the British Navy.”]
“Australia’s safeguards”, The Newcastle Sun (Newcastle, NSW), 6 October 1937, p. 4 (Last Race Edition) [“Australia’s security, whether we like it or not, is bound up with the British naval power.”]
[8] Commonwealth of Australia, “Parliamentary Debates: House of Representatives: Official Hansard”, 1907 no. 50, 13 December 1907, p. 7510-7511 [PDF pp. 67-68]
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