The Nineteenth Century, July 1902, pp. 43-54
ASIA AND AUSTRALASIA by John Douglas+
The Australian Commonwealth has a number of knotty questions
to solve—one of not the least difficult is that of the settlement and
civilisation of Northern Australia.
On the one hand we have Australasia, including New Zealand,
with some four millions of inhabitants, chiefly living in what may be called
sub-tropical Australia; then we have a wide belt, practically the unoccupied
space of Tropical Australia; and then, beyond that, there is Asia with its
countless millions—Netherlands India, with its thirty millions; the Malay
States, British India, the Philippines, China, and Japan, with all their
multitudinous millions, seething and effervescing as it were under the leavening
influence of Western civilisation. And when Asia and Australasia come into
closer contact what is going to happen? Is Tropical Australia to be influenced
by its climatic conditions and its propinquity to Asia, or is it to be
inhabited and influenced by the people of Australia?
Northern Australia, north of the Tropic of Capricorn, is a
vast, sparsely peopled country whose inhabitants, according to Mr. Fenton (the
Commonwealth Statist), are estimated at about 170,000 souls—though he admits
that his data for this estimate are at present incomplete.
It may be interesting, however, to record the details with
which I have been supplied by him. According to these the total white and
coloured population in Tropical Australia is 170,930, apportioned as follows:
|
Queensland |
South Australia |
West Australia |
|
|
White |
145,170 |
1,561 |
2,970 |
|
Coloured |
16,700 |
2,830 |
1,700 |
|
161,870 |
4,390 |
4,670 |
I am myself inclined to think that Mr. Fenton’s estimate of
the aboriginal population is too low, and that 30,000 or even 50,000 might be
added to the 170,930 souls above mentioned.
Though not populous, therefore, this vast area is
undoubtedly rich in latent wealth. It is a great mineral country—there can be
no doubt of that: scientific observations and practical prospecting both point
to that conclusion. Its pastoral capabilities are also great without estimating
the arid wastes of the country four or five hundred miles from the coast. There
are portions, also, of the seaboard which may be regarded as agricultural, and
richly endowed with a prolific soil, though these are limited, as compared with
the deserts which intersect it.
Such is the Tropical Australia about which I propose to say
something here, especially of that portion of it in Northern Queensland, in the
Torres Strait, and in New Guinea, where I have spent a good many years of my
life within the tropics.
When I first knew Australia, in 1851, there was no Tropical
Australia—no Tropical Australia inhabited by Europeans. Brisbane was the
furthest Northern settlement and Moreton Bay was emerging from the era of
transportation. But then gold had been discovered near Bathurst and all the
world of Sydney was off to the goldfields.
Being in those days an ingenuous new chum of
three-and-twenty, I went straight for the goldfields, and on my way thither I
made the acquaintance of a rather remarkable historical personage. He was
sitting at the head of a long table at Bathurst, where a number of travellers
had met to dine, and he was holding forth in rather a dominant tone on the
desperate prospects of a country given up to gold-digging. What would become of
the great pastoral interests of the country? The shepherds would all desert their
flocks, and the sheep would become the prey of the dingoes. The gentleman I
speak of had a florid face and a resonant, commanding voice. The country in
very truth, said he, would go to the dogs.
As a stranger I ventured to remark that there was another
way to look at the question, and that the goldfields might attract a most
enterprising population from the Old Country, and after all, if the worst came
to the worst, the sheep would look after themselves for a time. Then someone
else intervened, and ejaculated, ‘Chinese—we will send for Chinese.’ At this
the gentleman of the florid face and the resonant voice became still more
florid and still more resonant.
He apostrophised the suggested Chinamen, and then and there
they were consigned to a place supposed to be even hotter than the hottest
portion of Australia. The gentleman whom I had thus rather incautiously roused
was, as I subsequently ascertained, the celebrated William Charles Wentworth,
the ideal patriot and legislator of New South Wales. Nevertheless, the Chinamen
were sent for; the Chinamen came; and for some years many of them tended the
sheep of Australia in which Mr. Wentworth was so interested.
I myself had a good deal of experience of them and found
that some of them made very good shepherds, for that was in the days when the
country was not fenced in, and when a shepherd who could fatten a flock well
for the pots was worth 1l. a week.
Australia was indeed willing to accept the services of Asia
for some years, while everybody was busy at the goldfields.
At a somewhat later period I was in Northern Australia—what
was then Northern Australia—in the vicinity of Brisbane. There was an agitation
for separation. We were languishing for want of men—men and women to do the
work of the splendid country which had been discovered. If we could not get
enough immigrants from the Old Country, we should have to get coolies from
India; and even Dr. Lang, the great agitator and advocate of British
immigration, admitted that we might have coolies from India, seeing that
Moreton Bay was a semi-tropical country, and coolies might help us to grow
cotton for Manchester.
Coolies, at any rate, were better than convicts, which
seemed to be the alternative, for the squatters began to talk of the resumption
of transportation. But neither coolies nor convicts came. Separation was
accomplished, and with separation came the land order system and British
immigrants. There was a grand transformation scene, and Queensland came to the
front as one of the leading colonies of Australia. Then, under the governorship
of Sir George Bowen, there set in a period of great northern expansion. New
townships were formed on the Northern seaboard. Rockhampton, Mackay, Bowen, and
Townsville, Cardwell, Cairns, and Cooktown sprang into existence as if by
magic.
All these places, one after the other, were founded and
prospered. Still no coolies—only the poor English and Irish and Scotch and
German immigrants, who got sadly bitten by mosquitoes when they first arrived,
but who pushed out not only northwards, but westwards, right through from end
to end of the country. It was amazing and unprecedented, but it was
indisputable. At this time sugar and cotton were beginning to be grown, but
sugar, as people said in those days, could not be grown without coolies. If we
could not get coolies from India, we might get coolies possibly from Java—so
thought the sugar-planters—or perhaps we might learn how to grow sugar from the
Dutch in Java; and so it came about that a kind of embassy was sent to Batavia,
and an agreement—which lasted only a short time—was made with our Dutch
neighbours to run steamers through Torres Strait round Cape York, where
Somerset had already been established. I happened then to be Postmaster-General
in Sir George Bowen’s Government, and the first contract for a steam-service
through Torres Strait was signed by me; but it did not last long, and it was
found better for us to go to Singapore than to Batavia.
Ultimately the British Indian Company took the mail
contract, and with it came an agreement under which immigrants were brought out
by way of the Red Sea. It was considered an experiment at the time, but it
proved a great success. It was clearly demonstrated that immigrants could be
brought out by steamships through the Red Sea with less mortality and greater
comfort than they could be by the Cape in sailing ships. Thenceforth Torres
Strait became the recognised highway for British immigrants to our northern
settlements, and the fertilising stream continued to contribute to their
surprising growth.
All this time coolies from India had been talked about.
Bills had been introduced into Parliament, negotiations had taken place with
the Indian Government, but nothing came of it all. No Government would face the
responsibility of introducing them, and finally Sir Thomas McIlwraith abandoned
the idea altogether, and promised his constituents never again to advocate it.
Nothing could be more explicit than his statements in this respect.
Meanwhile, however, the cry for coolies had been to a great
extent met by the introduction of South Sea Islanders, who were found to be
most useful auxiliaries in the plantations right along the coast from the Logan
to Cairns and Port Douglas. In spite of the abominable iniquities connected
with the introduction of Pacific Islanders in the early days of its inception,
when the enormities of the slave trade were reproduced with variations which
only feebly differentiated it from its African prototype—in spite, I say, of
this—it was licked into a kind of shape which made it in a sort of way
tolerable.
And at last, this island traffic was coddled into existence
as a substitute for the coolies whose introduction had been abandoned, and
there is no doubt that the Islanders proved most helpful, though their
employment led to much difference of opinion among ourselves. The cry for
Indian coolies died out, partly because the politicians found it necessary to
abandon it, and partly because the amiable and adaptable South Sea Islander had
proved an excellent and most suitable substitute. But all this time a considerable
voluntary immigration of another kind of Asiatic coolie had set in: the
Chinaman once more put in his appearance, attracted to the northern and eastern
shores of Australia by the discovery of gold, and chiefly by the discovery of
gold at Thornborough and the Palmer Rivers.
Now, we Australians have never been in love with the
Chinaman, and in that respect we were of the same mind as Mr. Wentworth, the
gentleman of the resonant voice of whom I have spoken. John Chinaman
nevertheless was coming to us in larger numbers than we liked. He was helping
himself to our gold, and he was costing us money in the additional police which
had to be employed to look after him. What could we do? Well, we brought in
Bills and passed them through Parliament; we proposed that each Chinaman should
pay 10l. on landing, which amount was to be returned to him when he left
us, provided that in the meantime he had not cost us anything as an inmate of
our gaols or hospitals. The Colonial Secretary, however, at that time would
have none of our Chinese Bills, and Her Majesty’s assent was withheld from
them. Still the Chinamen came—not by hundreds, but by thousands: shiploads were
arriving every day. Already there were 30,000 on the Palmer River and at that
rate Northern Queensland would soon have become a Chinese dependency of the
British Empire. It was an anxious time for us all, and especially for me, for I
happened at the time to be at the head of the Ministry. As good luck would have
it, however, a comparatively trifling incident supplied us with a solution of the
difficulty. A vessel arrived from Hong-Kong with a case of smallpox on board.
She was placed in quarantine, and an executive minute was passed which required
that all ships coming from China should perform quarantine.
The expedient we had recourse to proved effective. In a
short time 4,000 Chinamen were performing quarantine on FitzRoy Island, off
Cape Grafton; and our new Governor, Sir Arthur Kennedy, also happening to
arrive at the same time, had to go into quarantine at Moreton Bay. This
quarantine expedient settled the whole question. Shippers no longer found it
profitable to book Chinese passengers to Queensland; and the Colonial Office,
seeing that we were in earnest, assented to the much more drastic legislation which
was ultimately adopted throughout Australia.
The incident I refer to happened in 1876, and since then I
think I may say that no large number of Chinamen have come to remain in
Australia. I should add, however, that the Chinamen who came to the Palmer
Diggings got a good deal of alluvial gold on the Palmer. Many of them—most of
those who got gold—returned to China, and those who did not got distributed
over the country—many of them being employed in clearing the scrub lands on the
coast, which were afterwards transformed into sugar-plantations. A few years
after the time I speak of I severed my connection with Queensland politics, and
since then I have lived chiefly at Thursday Island and in British New Guinea.
I now come to the more special subject of this paper, and
shall endeavour first to sketch briefly the history of the settlement at
Thursday Island as one of the connecting links between Asia and Australasia,
and the centre of our pearl-shell fishery in Torres Strait. And then I shall
have something more to add in reference to the present relations of Asia and
Australasia in connection with the recent Commonwealth legislation on alien
immigration.
First, then, as to the inception of the pearl-shell fishery.
It commenced in 1869 at Somerset. Hither came some adventurous mariners from
Sydney with scratch crews consisting chiefly of South Sea Islanders. The Wappa
or Warrior reef was the first scene of their search, and the method was that of
what we call swimming diving—that is, of diving without the aid of any
apparatus. The shell was very abundant, and was readily brought to the surface
by the expert swimming natives in waters which did not exceed twenty feet in
depth. The few boats which were then engaged in the fishery were soon filled to
the brim, and though the price realised at first did not reach 100l. a
ton, it was so easily obtained at but small outlay that it paid remarkably
well. Then, when the shell reached the London market prices rose till they
reached 250l. a ton. Herein, then, there was manifestly a new discovery
which attracted marked attention. More boats and more extended prospecting
resulted in increased proportion. The Ormond reefs proved most productive, and
the shallow channels round the Prince of Wales Islands were exceptionally rich.
Some fortunes were very quickly made by swimming diving, and
a good many precious pearls found their way to Sydney as the illicit
perquisites of the South Sea Island divers, who generally managed to
appropriate them. Indeed, so handsome were the profits realised from the shell
itself that the boat-owners began to regard the possession of the pearls
obtained as a secondary consideration altogether. Besides, if a diver happened
to find a good pearl in the shell which he opened and handled, how was the master
to know anything about it? Many a diver, accordingly, after a successful season
in Torres Strait, could afford to spend a high time of it in Sydney for many
weeks. Thus it came about that a good deal of attention was attracted to this
profitable pursuit.
Boats were fitted out with diving apparatus, and white men
began to think that it might be worth their while to learn how to dive in the
diving dress. Under such conditions as then prevailed there was little or no
risk, and with ordinary care diving for pearl shell might be quite as
profitable as gold-digging. Meanwhile more boats made their appearance. But it
was not so easy to supply the crews. The local source of supply was exhausted.
The shallow waters had been pretty well picked over, and in them the shell was
less abundant: the deeper waters must be tried, and for them more men were
wanted. And thus it came about that Malays and Manila men were recruited. The
steamers then plying between Brisbane and Singapore proved to be convenient
vehicles for the introduction of these men, and the men turned out on the whole
to be very suitable for the work. There were no divers among them at first, but
they soon learned to work in the diving dress, and some of them proved to be
excellent divers. As time went on, it was found that Somerset was not a very
suitable centre for the industry. The Prince of Wales Islands were resorted to
by the shellers. Albany Pass proved to be a somewhat dangerous anchorage: the
tides were too strong. The channels round Thursday Island were found to be
safer and more secure, and so it came about that the settlement was moved from
Somerset to Thursday Island. In the little bays and sheltered anchorages which
abound in that locality the shellers had already begun to form head stations,
where they lived themselves, and whence they despatched their boats to the
neighbouring fishing grounds. A sheller’s fleet might consist of ten or fifteen
or perhaps even twenty luggers. These he would fit out at his head station, and
send them to sea for a month or six weeks; and at the end of that time they
would return with the shell they had obtained, when they remained in port for a
few days, and then went out again to the fishing ground with a fresh supply of
provisions.
This system worked fairly well for some years when shell was
plentiful and divers were not too knowing. The pearls, it is true, all went to
the divers as their perquisite, and this was almost recognised by the masters,
who sometimes bought their own pearls at a good round discount; but a time came
when it became necessary to sail closer to the wind in order to earn profits on
the increased capital which was being put into the industry, and so it came
about that attendant schooners were sent to sea with the small fleets of
luggers. These were called ‘floating stations,’ and thus the owners were able
to control their men more effectively, and when the luggers required provisions
they had recourse to the mother schooners, or floating stations, from which
they could obtain anything they required. This saved much time—the time which
used to be spent in port—and it also put an end to the convenient appropriation
of pearls by the divers. All shell had to be brought to the ‘mother schooner’
before it was opened, and thus the pearls were arrested before they reached the
pockets of the divers. Everything which used to be done on land was now done at
sea: the shell was collected, opened, cleaned, packed, and branded all ready
for shipment. The ‘mother schooners,’ again, were waited on by tenders which
brought them stores and took the packed shell into port. In this way the
shelling fleet could remain out on the fishing ground for a long time, and the
Thursday Island people who used to nurse the boats when they came into port
grumbled greatly at the new system, which scarcely gave them a chance of
existence.
Such are the conditions on which this industry is now
carried on. There are 247 boats using diving apparatus, and there are nine
‘mother schooners.’ These boats and these schooners represent a considerable
amount of capital, a large proportion of which is owned in Brisbane; and
besides these there are 114 boats locally owned, which are chiefly engaged in
the old primitive system of swimming, diving, or in the preparation of bêche-de-mer.
Altogether there are now some 361 boats under licence from the Queensland
Government, manned almost exclusively by coloured men who are mostly Asiatics.
I have said that at first the shellers, finding that it was impossible to get
sufficient white men who would ship in their boats, had recourse to Malays and
Manila men, both of whom were found suitable for the purpose.
Then came the Japanese, who appeared to be not only suitable
as employees, but who very soon showed that they could not only work for
others, but that they could work for themselves. They bought and built boats,
and fitted them out, obtaining licences, and winning for themselves a position
and a standing which could not be questioned. Would they appropriate the
industry? It looked very like it. In numbers they were rapidly increasing, and
in co-operative capacity they proved more than a match for the Europeans or the
Manila men. Then it was discovered that the Asiatic Japanese is an alien, and
it was scarcely to be expected that we could license aliens to take our
profitable pearl shell from our territorial waters. And thus it came about that
the licensing of boats, which up to that time had been unlimited, was
thenceforth restricted to British subjects. It was our undoubted right to put
this limitation in force, and it was absolutely necessary, for without it there
can be no doubt that the industry would very soon have passed into the hands of
the Japanese, just as the northern goldfields would have passed into the hands
of the Chinese if we had not found the means of preventing it. And it was
necessary not only to restrict the issue of licences to British subjects, but
it was also necessary to check what threatened to be a small invasion of
Japanese who were arriving not only for employment in the pearl-shell
fisheries, but also on the sugar-plantations; and this, fortunately, was easily
accomplished by correspondence between the two Governments—for it must be said
to the credit of the Japanese Government that they have shown themselves to be
most reasonable and considerate in their negotiations with us. It was arranged,
accordingly, that immigrant Japanese should be furnished with passports, and
that no passports should be issued except on authority from the Queensland
Government.
It was thus found possible to adjust the supply to the
demand, and to limit it altogether to a standard number to be agreed on. So the
matter stands at the present time—or, rather, perhaps I should say stood, until
the late legislation of the Commonwealth Parliament, under which the
arrangements made by the Queensland Government are partially abrogated, and the
treaty engagements entered into have been ignored. I will quote a few figures
from the latest authorities at my command. At Thursday Island, which is the
centre of action, lying about twenty miles from the mainland of Australia, we
have a population of 1,695 souls, the different nationalities being thus
apportioned:
|
Nationality |
Number |
Nationality |
Number |
|
Europeans |
705 |
Pacific Islanders |
81 |
|
Japanese |
304 |
Cingalese |
54 |
|
Aboriginals |
113 |
Hindoos |
22 |
|
Chinese |
114 |
New Guinea natives |
29 |
|
Philippinos |
83 |
Javanese |
7 |
|
Malays |
55 |
Other mixed races |
128 |
Thus Europeans still head the list.
Now, I, who am, as I fain to confess, a white Australian in
everything which is essential for the existence of a white Australia, am not
ashamed of these figures. I should like, it is true, to see a larger proportion
of Europeans, and there is no reason to believe that such might not be brought
about. But here, in this little community, we have all the essentials which may
be regarded as appertaining to a white Australia: we have the same
all-pervading British law, applicable to Asian and Australian alike, the same
English language, and the same forms of social intercourse which prevail in
Southern Australia; our churches and schools are an exact counterpart on a
small scale of what they are in Melbourne or in Brisbane.
Passing now to the maritime population, let us see in what
proportion the different nationalities are represented:
|
Nationality |
Number |
Nationality |
Number |
|
Europeans |
65 |
Rotumah men |
79 |
|
Japanese |
619 |
Samoans |
27 |
|
Philippinos |
237 |
Aboriginals of Australia |
171 |
|
Malays |
217 |
Papuans |
27 |
|
Torres Strait Islanders |
279 |
Miscellaneous |
69 |
|
Pacific Islanders |
242 |
—making a total of men shipped and employed as crews in the
pearl-shell and bêche-de-mer industries of 2,032, and these of course
are all single men. Among the Asiatic contingent resident on Thursday Island
there are forty-three Japanese women, of whom a few are respectable married
women; the rest we may classify as not very respectable, though in their
special avocation they are orderly and well behaved.
Of the Philippinos also a few are married women, for it is
the custom of the Manila man, when he is sufficiently well off, to order a wife
from the conventual schools at Macao. In addition to these there are a few
aboriginal women who are married, chiefly to Manila men; and of European women
there are 180, with 249 children, who show no special signs of degeneracy from
the old stock. Such is a closely approximate statement of our population at
Thursday Island.
Here certainly Asia has the best of it, and herein, as I
believe, Asia will continue to have the best of it. I scarcely see how it can
be that the Asiatic should not outnumber the European; you might prohibit or
place difficulties in the employment of Asiatics or of aliens to-morrow—as,
indeed, the Commonwealth Parliament has done, or perhaps I should say threatens
to do—but whom could you find to take their place? The white man will not ship
at 2l. or at 3l. a month, even if he is furnished with everything
which he can expect to be supplied with at sea. It may be quite true the
occupation is a perfectly healthy one, and that the risks to be encountered are
infinitesimally small as compared with the rigours and dangers of our
fisher-folk in the north seas. The white men are not to be had who will man the
pearling luggers, nor are there white divers who will work with coloured crews.
I scarcely know why white men are not attracted by the rich rewards of a diver’s
calling, but such is undoubtedly the case.
They are not in the field. There are some who say they will
soon come to the front if we give them a chance by shutting out the Asiatic
competitor.
Meanwhile the Asiatic, with his employer, the owner of the
floating stations and ‘mother schooners,’ is in possession of the field, and it
is hardly likely, as it seems to me, that he will be dispossessed. But a new
aspect also will come over the whole question by the passing of the
Commonwealth restriction legislation. Under that legislation how can the
Asiatic find a footing?
To that the pearl sheller, with his floating station and his
‘mother-schooner,’ replies, ‘Nevertheless we shall live. You may drive us from
your territorial waters, but we shall find a field for our industry outside
your limits on the high seas.’ And there is certainly some prospect that
recourse may be had to such an expedient.
The Dutch have lately opened a settlement in Dutch New
Guinea, not more than one hundred miles from our western boundary. They are
holding out inducements to our pearl shellers to go there, and the pearl
shellers say, ‘Why should we not, if we can get better terms for our Asiatic
crews? What is to prevent us doing so? We can even fish, just as we have done,
on our old fishing ground, and you cannot touch us so long as we keep out of
your territorial waters.’ There is no doubt a good deal in this, and it remains
to be seen how it will work out. The probability is that the Commonwealth will
come to some compromise, by which the pearl-shell fisheries, both on the
northern and north-western shores of Australia, will be regarded as maritime
industries differentiated in some respects from the question of alien or
Asiatic labour as applied to the mainland. There is, I think, a real difference
which will have to be recognised.
I have endeavoured to describe the position as regards the Asiatic
alien as applied to Thursday Island. At Port Darwin and in Western Australia
the same principles and the same practices hold good. In the Northern Territory
there are not many Malays or Japanese, though there are a good many
Chinese—some 2,567, according to the last returns. In Western Australia their
pearl-shelling fleets are recruited from Java and Singapore. There, too, it is
a limited maritime enterprise which is not likely to be seriously interfered
with by the new legislation. Before I leave this branch of my subject, however,
I will mention what the Queensland Government have lately done in connection
with the pearl-shell fishery in Torres Strait.
They have made pretty extensive water reserves in the
neighbourhood of Thursday Island, and they have instructed their officers not
to issue any new licences.
Both these provisions have, of course, had the effect of
considerably limiting the operations of those engaged in the industry. They
have a tendency, also, in the direction of creating a monopoly as regards the
present holders of licences. I must confess that they do not very much commend
themselves to my judgment. Here is an industry which during the thirty-three
years it has been in existence has resulted in the production of shell, bêche-de-mer,
and tortoiseshell which has realised, according to my estimate, something like
5,000,000l. in the London and Eastern markets. Can nothing better be
done for it than to impose all those restrictions with the intention, as it is
said, of saving it from impending destruction? The specific cure for the
malady, it seems to me, would be to persevere in the excellent endeavours which
have already been made to ascertain the best methods of cultivating the shell
among the reefs and breeding channels where at one time it was so abundant.
This will certainly be accomplished someday, and the sooner the better, even if
it costs a large sum of money by way of experiment. The Government, indeed, got
as far as the appointment of a scientific expert for this purpose, but there
the matter has ended in the meantime—ad futurum tempus relegatum est,
like many of our grand schemes, and we must wait for some other solution of the
great Asiatic question in connection with Torres Strait. According to my
reading of the signs of the times, this question of Asia and Australia is one
of the great questions of the present and of the future for Australia. I am
quite as conscious as many other people are that the vast area of Northern
Australia cannot be peopled by Europeans alone, as the shores of Southern
Australia are peopled, yet I am perfectly satisfied that the people of the
southern States of Australia will do their level best to maintain the integrity
of their present institutions, and the existence of what is called a ‘white
Australia.’ It is not a question of the labour party alone, as some people think:
it is the conviction and determination, as I believe, of nine-tenths of the
present people of Australia. It is vain to say that the forces of Nature are
against us: ‘Dii me terrent et Jupiter hostis.’ It is not the first time
we have fought with the forces of Nature—and even if it comes to the worst, we
must have time to learn our lessons.
The Commonwealth of Australia has already undertaken the
white man’s burden in accepting the responsibilities of the government of New
Guinea. That is no light matter. It almost follows that it will have to
undertake the responsibility of governing the Northern Territory of both South
and Western Australia. It will have to make railways both to Western Australia
and to North Australia, and then, but not till then, the difficulties and
responsibilities of providing for the government of the northern Tropical
States of Australia will begin to be realised. May I presume to add that, in
the meantime, I am certain that the people of England will be patient with us?
We shall have a number of most difficult problems to solve, and we cannot solve
them all at once. The shaping of our own destiny has been confided to us, and I
do not doubt that we shall be led on step by step to make a proper use of the
great privileges which we inherit from those who have gone before us.
It must always be remembered that sub-tropical Australia,
the Australia of the southern Australian States—of Southern Queensland, of New
South Wales and Victoria—will never consent, come what may, if I am any judge
of public opinion, to the systematic introduction of coloured labour into
northern Australia. They value their inheritance too highly to justify any such
expectation. It may be pride, it may be prejudice, but I believe it is a
passionate conviction with the present inhabitants of Australia that the
unexplored and uninhabited portions of their country shall be reserved for
their own use, even though they are included in the zone of the Tropics; and
when I say their own use I mean, of course, that they would desire that such
territory should be occupied as Australia has hitherto been occupied—by men and
women of their own kith and kin—and that the introduction of Eastern races must
be subject to such limitations as they may please to impose.
