White Australia policy: Menaced by conscription [12 December 1917]

[Editor: This article, regarding the issue of conscription during the First World War (1914-1918) and its connection to the White Australia Policy, was published in The Daily Standard (Brisbane, Qld.), 12 December 1917.]

White Australia policy.

Menaced by conscription.

Innisfail, Wednesday.

At an executive meeting of the United Canegrowers’ Association, at Innisfail, the following resolution was carried:—

“That this association enters an emphatic protest against the introduction of conscription, and considers that the denudation of our white manhood, which is so essential to the successful carrying on of the prosecution of this war, would seriously prejudice our White Australia policy, and, while subverting our highly treasured and time-honored national, racial, and social ideals, would also militate against Australian activity in this war.

Knowing as we do that the jam and other important industries, which depend on sugar for their existence, and are so necessary for the supply of food to soldiers, would be paralysed, the industries of the Commonwealth stagnated, and the financial strain become unbearable, while our only alternative appears to be that of the importation of aliens, or otherwise sugar grown by colored labor, which, in view of the shortage of bottoms, seems impracticable, as we know that millions of bushels of cereals are rotting in the South owing to the inability of the Federal Government to ship the same across the seas, whilst Britain and the Allies are so much in need of food.”

E. McKenna, Innisfail.

Source:
The Daily Standard (Brisbane, Qld.), 12 December 1917, p. 6 (Second Edition)

Editor’s notes:
Commonwealth = the Commonwealth of Australia; the Australian nation, federated on 1 January 1901

denudation = the act of denuding: to lay bare, make naked, strip, uncover; to remove the covering of something; to remove aspects, component parts, or elements from something (e.g. to denude a forest of its trees; to denude an organisation of its support staff; to denude a fleet of its battleships)

Federal Government = (in the context of Australia) the national government of Australia; after the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901, the federal government was based in Melbourne (Victoria) from 1901 to 1927, and was relocated to Canberra (Australian Capital Territory) in 1927

[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]