Chapter V: Australia for the Australians

This watchword is the motto of "the national newspaper." It is also the top note of all the Labour party screeches.

The national weakness of Australia it shows is instinctive. There is a distrust of its own capability; self-reliance is totally absent; there is no vital growth.

Never was the confirmation of such wretched defects in a people so complete as in this confessional clamour, this lack of combating power of pride of race.

Ostensibly it is to exclude inferiors, but it really argues against the incoming of superiors. In striking contrast is it from the "Let 'em all come" policy of Great Britain.

The screaming farce of the whole business, however, is the education test immigrants are subjected to. They must be able to write a line of some European language. Why, official figures show that there are in Australia nearly 400,000 persons over the usual literate age who cannot read and write.

"Australia for the Australians" is merely the cowardice shriek, "Preservation for the incompetent." To exclude is to fear, disguised howsoever it be.

Such widespread self-deceit as to its being anything else is impossible of credence. It is the craven state of pampered workers that has infected all classes in Australia. Periodically the country gets an attack of delirium tremens, and then it sees the black man, the yellow man, and variegated mankind generally with the upper hand.

And this is the hysterical way it then acts (vide a Brisbane paper):--

"ALIENS CAN'T LAND.
NOT EVEN TO BE BURIED.
A CUSTOMS DISCOVERY.

"A colored man named L. Peraira, second cook on the B.I.S.N. Company's steamer Onipenta, now berthed at the A.U.S.N. Company's Norman Wharf, died on board the vessel on Wednesday evening. Deceased had been attended by a doctor, who certified that death was due to heart failure caused by beri-beri. Under the circumstances the usual certificate was issued, and arrangements made for the burial of the body. Particulars of the death reached the Customs authorities in due course, and it is stated they took exception to the landing of the body for interment, and claimed that they were acting in conformity with the terms of the Alien Immigration Restriction Act. By the time this attitude of the Customs authorities became known, the undertaker had, it is said, completed his work, and the body of the deceased had been interred. It now remains to be seen what further action, if any, the authorities will take in the matter."

In the meantime the rich tropical lands are given over to rank growths, and are referred to for the purposes of borrowing and peroration as the "great national resources of Australia."

When the Japanese squadron was in Australian waters, the Admiral confided in the commanding officer of the Commonwealth forces that both his country and China had envious eyes cast upon these self-same tropical tracts. If it were not for the protection Great Britain affords Australia there would be very little to stop either yellow Power from materialising its envy. The Japanese squadron told Australia plainly what it thought of its coastal defences just as an indication of all this. Great precaution had been taken not to allow any camera parties from the Japanese boats over the fortifications when in the port of Melbourne. The Japs simply went and looked round casually. But when they fired their farewell salute just without the "Heads" the squadron hove-to at a spot where it could shell Queenscliff while not one gun in those fortifications could be brought to bear on it. And just at present we have the spectacle of a party of Japanese explorers encamped within sight of Sydney's main fortifications.

When Australia works itself into a cold perspiration about the yellow man, it, _ipso facto_, acknowledges the equality of him. The same with the nigger who is, at the most, only wanted to do the lowest form of tropical field work. But it is the custom of the demagogues in Australia to talk about "the dignity of labour" without discrimination of any kind.

For the Indian coolie, say, to be able to do given work at a less wage than a white, at the same time doing it better, surely gives him some claim to be considered in the economic scheme of things. Then take the ethical point of view. The coolie lives a less brutal life than the great proportion of northern white workers, and shows a greater margin of savings out of a lesser wage. He is thus emphatically more desirable than the aforesaid proportion of Australian white worker, which has no margin out of wages after paying for beer, but usually has the next week's wages mortgaged to the local publican.

For it is only the wreckage, the scum of the stream of life that drift to tropical field labour. When I went among them I felt for the first time the shame of the comparison of those of my own race with the South Sea nigger.

Better fence the nigger into Australia and deport the white who has sunk so low as to take coolie work to some country where they have not laws against undesirable immigrants. Australia is the only country where the white is consumed with that ignoble desire.

"But," shrieks the Labour agitator, "the Australian spends his money and is better for the community."

Personally, I have scant sympathy and no admiration for the fat-fingered publican and his brother (by trade ties) the brewer.

The same objection was taken to the coolie as is taken to the Chinaman--viz., he is saving and economic. And if good citizenship is merely a matter of spending money with the beer vendor--plainly a false and untenable premise--then was the Kanaka of all "desirables" the most to be desired. All he got out of the production of a ton of sugar, valued at L20, roughly, was 30/-, and at that cost he created a profitable avenue of energy for the white worker. He never took a shilling back to his island.

The American is getting over "the dignity of labour" trouble by machinery. The Australian hasn't the brains to do likewise, nor is he a workman as reliable as a mechanical contrivance, because the latter doesn't get drunk or strike on any pretext.