Attitudes to Non-European Immigration

158 Pages·1968·23.779 MB·English

by  A.T. Yarwood

PROBLEMS IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORY
Attitudes to
European
Immigration
Edited, with an introduction by
A. T. Yarwooc
of
Senior Lecturer in History, University New South Wales
I
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Contents
Introduction 1
1. The Early Recruitment of Coloured Labour for Nve w
South Wales
(H) COOLIE LABOUR-THE FIRST STAGE 7
(b) 'SIR JAMES STEPHEN ON A WHITE
AUSTRALIA' g
Documents 11-18
2. Anti-Chinese Movements--The First Phase
CHINESE ON THE GOLDFIELDS 19
Documents 23 - 39
3. Coloured Labour Experiments in Queensland
la) THE INDIAN COOLIE LABOUR ISSUE 40
(b) KANAKA LABOUR IN QUEENSLAND 48
(c) KANAKA LABOUR IN QUEENSLAND [2] 50
(d) KANAKA LABOUR IN QUEENSLAND [3] 53
(G) KANAKA LABOUR IN QUEENSLAND [4] 57
Documents 60-69
4. Racial Homogeneity Becomes a National Policy
(H) GROWTH OF THE wH1T18 AUSTRLIA
CONCEPT 70
(b) CHINESE COMPETITION IN DIVERSE
OCCUPATIONS 77
ac) THE LATE COLONIAL PERIOD 80
Documents 82-101
5. Attitudes and Policies in the 20th Century
(a) THE EARLY COMMONWEALTH PERIOD 102
(b) 'JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA' 107
(c) SINCE 'WORLD WAR.1 112
Documents 117-123
6. The Current Debate
wH1T}8 AUSTRALIA-REFORM? 124
Documents 130-144
Basic Secondary Sources 145
Index 147
AC KNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank in general terms the many authors and publishers
from whose work I have selected the extracts that make up a large
part of this volume. Individual acknowledgments appear at
relevant points in the book, though a special reference should be
made here to the kindness of the New South Wales State Archivist
in granting permission for the reproduction of archival material
used in Section 4.
The staffs of the Mitchell Library and the New South Wales
Public Library have again placed me in their debt.
To my colleague, Dr. Heather Radi, I offer warm thanks for
reading the manuscript and giving invaluable criticism. Thanks
are due also to Mrs. Lyndsey .Jennings for her services as a typist.
Finally I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Frank
Crowley and my other colleagues at the University of New South
Wales for their support and encouragement.
The book I dedicate to my wife.
Alexander T. Yarwood
University of New South Wales
January, 1968

Introduction
This book was first conceived as a collection of readings traversing
the main phases of the history of Australian attitudes to non-
European immigration. It was soon seen that 'documentS sere
to be an indispensable complement to the readings. They offer
vivid and undiluted samples of public opinion, and they can
portray at the same time the continuity and the discontinuity of
views expressed in debate on a great national issue. What has
emerged is a compromise, embracing historical interpretations
that combine to form as near as may be a continuous narrative,
and docurnen§ that illustrate the historical process and bear
witness to the cornrnunity's attitudes over a period of 120 years.
The readier, as well as performing introductory roles, will, it
is hoped, be accepted as valuable in themselves. But the student
should be aware of the sharp dillEerenccs of interpretation amongst
the historians who seek to explain the genesis and growth of the
movement that culminated in the 'White Australia' policy. Was
the impulse mainly economic, springing from a labor oriented
desire to conserve high living standards and trade union solidar-
ity? "Tas it fear and scorn of the unfamiliar and the bizarre, as
manifested in the small boys' assaults on the Chinese? (Section 4J
document i) . Was it rather a primordial instinct for race purity,
brought First into vigorous play on many gold Fields by the spec-
tacle of a Chinese majority and by a general awareness of the vast
human reservoir from which these men came?
How important was the Australian's sense of remoteness from
Britain and the source of his racial stock as a factor in the creation
of barriers against non-European immigration? To what extent
was the policy of exclusion provoked by the early and continuing
absence of females amongst non-European arrivals? Syrians were
soon exempted from the disabilities suffered by other Asian
migrants, largely because they alone saw Australia from the first as
a home in which to settle and raise families. This fact, with its
economic and social implications, was reinforced by the Syrian's
2 INTRODUCTION
al-Iinities with the host population in religion and physical
appearance*
Finally, was the rapid hardening and formalizing of race
conscio usness in the 80's and 90's a natural growth or an artificial
product of the politicians' vote-catching play upon latent pre-
judices? At least one New South Wales politician, George Dibbs,
seems to have trimmed his sails to the prevailing wind (Section 4,
document iv.c). Limitations of space prevent an examination of
this issue, but it can be studied in the controversial articles by
B. E. Mansfield, K. M. Dallas and N. B. Nairn published in the
Australian Quarterly see Basic Secondary Sources, p. 145).
"That of the impact of the 'YVhite Australia' policy on economic
development, political and social institutions, and on the inter-
national relations of this country? Even while censuring his
ancestors for their racial intolerance, the historian of today is hard
pressed to refute the basic premises of the more enlightened
Australian statesmen of the nineteenth century. Freedom from
racial divisions, in which differences of language, religion and
custom were identified with skin eolour, made for a relatively
harmonious evolution of social and political institutions. Rela-
tions with Japan, if not cordial, were at least free from the dip-
lomatic crises that vexed Washington and Tokyo as a consequence
of the maltreatment of the Japanese minority in California. (See
Sections 5, 6 and Yarwood, A. T. op. cit., Co, 5.)
The task for the Australian statesman of 1968 is to assess the
degree to which changes since 1901 may warrant a major readjust-
ment towards the question of non-European immigration. lilfithin
Australia, the consolidation of the welfare state and the mellowing
of race prejudice may be regarded as grounds for offering a more
generous review of entry requirements than that announced by
the Minister for Immigration in March 1966 (Section 6, document
iv). The enhanced international stature of the newly independent
non-European nations and their sensitiveness to reminders of past
injustices may be urged as expedient reasons for such a revision
of policy. The Immigration Reform Group contends also that a
change is needed 'because we are being deprived of the oppor~
tunities for mutual enrichment and understanding which a less
inhibited contact would open up' (Quoted in Section 6, narrative).
Against these arguments must be set the cautionary examples of
friction in multi-racial societies referred to by the late Sir john
Latham (Section 6, document ii).
e \'Harwood, A.T. Asian Migration to Australia. The Background to Excision
1896-/923, Ch. 8, Melbourne, 1964.
INTRODUCTION 3
The reader, having been warned of disagreements amongst
the experts on matters of interpretation, should also be told of
the inadequacies of the published research material in some fields
covered by this volume. Following the appearance of Myra
lAlillard's History of the White Australia Policy in 1923, no major
study has considered the relationship between the exclusionist
movement of the last quarter of the 19th century and the great
political movements of that period. That is to say, the emergence
of the industrial and political wings of labour, the founding of
political parties possessing a durable institutional relationship
with groups in the community; and the growth of intercolonial
co-operation and national sentiment which produced the federa-
tion of the Australian colonies in 1901. An analysis of this relation-
ship must take account of the latter phase of colonial agitation
against the Chinese, when they moved from the gold fields to
engage in other ernployrnents. The resulting friction is referred to
in Section 4, but here too the published fruits of research have
been insufficient to sustain firm conclusions.
Interdisciplinary studies, enabling the historian to employ the
techniques or draw on the research of the sociologist, may help to
cast a light on the consolidation of the colnmunity's antipathy to
colored immigration. How much influence did the ideas of the
.
Social Darwinists exert 1 n Australia? Evolutionary theory, with its
notion of the survival of the fittest, was employed by Herbert
Spencer to give a pseudo-scientific endorsement to the comfortable
old assumptions of the EuropeanS intrinsic superiority over other
forms of human life. But the research has yet to be performed that
will clarify the relationship between this dogma and the demand
in Australia for the entire exclusion of non-European immigrants.
In our understanding of anti-Chinese movements on the gold
fields, we have been greatly assisted by recent scholarly work.
Geoffrey Serle has written a thoritative and balanced account
in The Gaiam A 6. A History of Ike Colony Q; Victoria. /851-
/861, which conch les;
'In view of the huge inHux of 1857, it is diilicult to deny that
restrictions were justified. And though the legislation of 1855
might be regarded as premature, later events went jar to vin-
dicate it. International events and the local employment crisis had
exacerbated an already difficult situation] (p. 335) . . .
Geoffrey Serle's argument corroborates a point made by Profes-
sor Manning Clark in Select Documents in Australian History
1851-1900, p. 68:
'One of the most powerful reasons for the opposition . [to the