EMPTY AUSTRALIA

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1011, 29 December 1910, Page 5

EMPTY AUSTRALIA

SUGAR EXPERT'S VIEWS. JAPANESE A REAL MENACE TO THE FAR NORTH. WHITE LABOUR PROBLEM. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright, (lice. December 28, 8.20 p.m.) Sydney, December 28. Dr. Maxwell, the Queensland sugar expert, was interviewed by the press prior to his departure for New Zealand to-day. Referring to tho Australian sugar industry, Dr. Maxwell said ho sympathised with the White Australia idea, but it was not known even yet whether tho industry could be left entirely to white labour, or whether white labour could do it economically and satisfactorily. Touching on the wider question of Australia's relations4o the coloured nations, Dr. Maxwell stated that Australia's danger lay in the East. Australia was the final outpost of the Pacific—the last great vacant country—and the eyes of tho East were on it. The Japanese were the most to be feared, and if L they got any sort of foothold in the north, Australia would never be able to drive, them out. There was no telling what the result would be. Every Japanese was every inch a soldier at heart, and when in Hawaii he learned that a largo number of Japanese there drilled every night for amusement. They had smuggled in arms, too. Australia could not afford to take any' risks, as the Japanese would do the same here as at Hawaii. Dr. Maxwell addtfd that although thousands of immigrants were coming to Australia from America, still in the meantime Australia bad its empty lands, and trouble might coine sooner than was .expected.

COLONISATION OF THE TROPICS,

The possibility of a permanent colonisation of tropical countries by whites with--1 out ultimate, racial degeneration has been much discusE-ed. In . the "United Empire," the journal of the Colonial Institute, for November Professor L. H. Lydo has. a paper on the subject, - in which he quotes the experience of Queensland and Panama.. , ; ■ The Panama . returns, with -.a, record ■death-rate, of .less'than 1 per; 1000, calculated over sohio-' 11,000 .white" employees, proves conclusively (says Jrofestbr • Lyde) that, apart from the question of cost, white labour can be employed with- impunity on heavy manual work, in the. tropics, even when that work involves .constant turnin" tin of virgin soil rich Mn microscopic .fauna.. The Canal zone is smaller , than Bedfordshire, and the cost averages ,£IOO,OOO per annum; hut yellow fever lias been practically abolished, and the death-rate from malaria lias been reduced to 1.23 per 1000! The Queensland returns, tho heavier hut still remarkable death-rate .of less than 12 per 1000, are in some ways even more important. They . prove not only that white men—even of a rather low,type or with a. moral standard reduced by the climatic conditions bfllow normal—can do hard field labour in. the tropics, but . also, that the ' employment of whi/o men for such tasks_ is actually a commercial proposition.' No doubt the Kanakas were far from being the' best type of coloured labour; the political compulsion to pay coloured 'labour in Queensland at the same rate as white labour vitiates all 1 ordinary economic comparisons now; and some i£300,000 a year has, been added, by import duties '•and bounties, to tli® Australian Sugar Bill. Still, when all is said, the fact remains that tho New South Wales planters, who a»5 .under no, legislative compulsion, „havc voluntarily come into line "wjth the Queensland planters, over 93 per cent, of'the New South Wales plantations now being worked with white labour;, and in Queensland itself; since tho anti-Kanaka laws came into-forco in 1002, thi» acreage under sugar lias increased (by about 35 per cent.) and the output of sugar ha's\ increased (by about 105 per cent.), while the cost of production has decreased, and tho. price of the sugar would-have decreased but for legislative, interference. One may 'add that if coloured labour might be employed for weeding "between the . seasons"—for whioh the white labour is too costly—the results would be still more, favourable. What' may .reasonably bo : inferred, from these and similar, facts ,is so important that it is a .great pity to. try to stretch the' plain, nieaning of them. _ They mi>an that there wili follow a great modification in. the .distribution of..white.people over the face of the earth';.and, with the practical -utilisation of solar energy . for "power" purposes, this will also involve a modification in the distribution of. industrial population. But -there are twd things which the facts and figures do 'not ' prove, or even support. They do not prove that tropical Queensland and similar areas are -suitable or desirable sites for the permanent home of white people; and they do not prove that coloured labohr, if selected arid treated with the ' same care, would not produce equally good results, and—in the absence of legislative interference—produce, them more 1 cheaply.