[Editor: This article, regarding opposition to the racial clause of the Post and Telegraph Act 1901 (using extracts from the Standard and the Leeds and Yorkshire Mercury), was published in The Geelong Advertiser (Geelong, Vic.), 25 July 1903. The Post and Telegraph Act played a minor role in the White Australia Policy.]
White labor and the mail contracts.
“Mr. Chamberlain’s despatch of April 17th to the Governor-General of Australia, on the exclusive employment of white labor in the mail service will be read with general regret.
… By one of the sections of the Commonwealth Post and Telegraph Act of 1901, it is provided that no subsidy shall be paid for the carriage of the mails except to companies which employ white labor only… The clear duty of His Majesty’s Government is to refuse to permit injustice to be inflicted on one class of subjects at the dictation of another.
Mr. Chamberlain takes up this position with a becoming firmness of language, and his argument is unanswerable. Even if Lascars had not hitherto been engaged in vessels carrying letters to Australia, ‘it would,’ as he justly observes, ‘destroy the faith of the people of India in the sanctity of the obligations undertaken towards them by the Crown,’ if the Imperial Government should become in any degree whatever parties to excluding them from such employment solely on the ground of color.’ But they have been shipped for a long period of years, and to discard them now would ‘produce justifiable discontent.’
It would also, we may add, be an act of nothing less than oppression. The Commonwealth Government having declined to be moved by his appeals, the Colonial Secretary has no resource but to inform the companies that the existing contracts will not be renewed when they expire on Jan. 31, 1905. … We can only hope that the eighteen months which are to pass before the present contract comes to an end will be utilised by the more enlightened public opinion of Australia to bring about a modification of the Act of 1901.
The Victorian Railway Strike has shown that Australians can defeat the attempts of the Labor Party to coerce the community when they feel themselves intolerably threatened. The prospect that the mail service will be disorganised should rouse them to a similar effort against class tyranny.”
“Mr. Chamberlain has adopted what will seem to most unprejudiced minds the only possible course in the matter of mail contracts to Australia and the East. … To agree to shut out men, merely because they are browner or blacker in color than the inhabitants of Australia, from ships which actually carried the mails to India, was a thing no British Government would have dared to do.
It was not a question of a ‘white’ Australia at all; nor could it have affected the conditions of employment at the Antipodes. Had we agreed to the insertion of the exclusion clause, Australia would not have benefited; whereas, it is certain that it would have produced, as Mr. Chamberlain remarked, ‘justifiable discontent among a large portion of His Majesty’s subjects.’
Australians must recognise that we have duties to perform towards the population of India as well as to them; but the preposterous demands made by the Commonwealth meant that we should take our policy from them. Self-government is a good thing, but it ought to respect the rights of other communities; but that is exactly what the Australians have failed to recognise.
What the result of all this will be is not known; but it would be an unfortunate episode in British history if it could ever be said that we wilfully disregarded our solemn obligations towards all India to suit the tastes and inclinations of a few scheming political wirepullers in Australia.”
Source:
The Geelong Advertiser (Geelong, Vic.), 25 July 1903, p. 5
Editor’s notes:
Antipodes = Australia and/or New Zealand (“antipodes” may also refer to two things which are direct opposites, such as opposing ideas or concepts, as well as including two places or areas which are on opposite sides of the world; hence the origin of its usage regarding Australasia)
Chamberlain = Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914), British politician; he was born in Camberwell (Surrey, England) in 1836, served as the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for the Colonies (1895-1903), and died in Birmingham (England) in 1914
See: “Joseph Chamberlain”, Wikipedia
Colonial Secretary = (in the context of the British government) the Secretary of State for the Colonies
Commonwealth = [1] the Commonwealth of Australia; the Australian nation, federated on 1 January 1901
Commonwealth = [2] the government of the Commonwealth of Australia, i.e. the federal government of Australia
Commonwealth Government = the government of the Commonwealth of Australia, i.e. the federal government of Australia
despatch = (an alternative spelling of “dispatch”) a communication, memo, message, or report (especially an official report sent as a matter of urgency, or a military communication sent to a headquarters or to a commanding officer)
His Majesty’s Government = (in the context of the United Kingdom) the British government
Imperial Government = (in the context of early Australia) the British government
Jan. = (abbreviation) January
Lascar = an artilleryman, militiaman, sailor, or army officer’s servant, primarily regarding men hired by British employers from India, but also used to refer to men hired from countries in or near to the Indian subcontinent (“lascar” is derived from the Hindi and Urdu word “lashkar”, meaning “army”)
wirepuller = (also spelt: wire-puller) a concealed or hidden manipulator (a manipulator behind the scenes); someone who privately or secretly exercises an influence upon others, so as to control, direct, and/or shape their actions in the furtherance of his own agenda, especially for personal, political, or ideological gain; an intriguer; a puppet master
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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