The Daily News. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1911. WHITE AUSTRALIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 62, 4 September 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1911. WHITE AUSTRALIA.

Mr. James Kdmond, of tin* Svdney Bulletin, contributes to the National lieview a brief |j;iper oil the Australian licet, which raises the much vaster question* whether the doctrine of ;i White Australia is compatible with the maintenance of the British Empire. The question comes up in this way:

Supposing a powerful Australian licet in lmilt and'is put under purely British cornniainl, which side will that licet lie on if the time comes to resolve whether the colored subject is a real yellow citizen or not'/

Mr. Edtnond says the Australian licet will bo created—

lirst, for the purpose of keeping Australia a white man's country against all comers, and second (only second) for the defence of the mostly colored Empire. To a very large section of Australians. (icrmaii conquest would be quite a minor evil compared with a great influx of our allegedly peaceful and loyal colored fellow-subjects from India or from anywhere else. In fact, if (lennari conquest were the only visible safeguard against such an inlhix it might even be welcomed. For the Australian has a dream. llis country is almost the same size as Europe or the United States, or Canada, lie pictures it as another and a better Europe, with 151),(MM),0011 or 21)0,000,(MM) inhabitants. Australia is the only continent which the Anglo-Saxon possesses —the only continent which any nation possesses—also the only continent on record which has ever had one race, one language, and one (ioverninent. The distinction is rare enough to be worth preserving. If the gates are opened to a colored intlux there will be ji welter of mixed races and a mere handful of white rulers. All immense area will lie cut out of Christendom. It may even be that on the question whether Australia is to lie white or colored will one day hang the still larger question whether the white or colored races will ultimately control the earth.

To which the only answer is, the Aiistraliiins must hurry up their white battalions. A handful of live millions scattered round the rim of a continent that can provide for human beings will not be able to shut the door against its fellow-citizens from India. The. J'ritish (Jovernment, wh.icli is educating all its native subjects that they are cijual in tlk; sight of (lod, ami therefore ought to be ecptal in the sight, of .Mr. As(|iiiih, who is undoubtedly a personage of le>s importance than (iod. bids fair to be the only great Asiatic Power which denies its subjects any real Parliamentary control over their own destinies. Mr. Kdmond thinks that when the process of education has gone on long enough lliey will M; at least; to have I he same light as the KnglUhnian to travel freely and settle freely throughout the Kmpire. Hence Mr. Kdmond thinks:

It appears that, a time will almost certainly come when one or two courses must be adopted: (1) The White Australia policy must go: (-2) It must, be explained, once, and . for all. to- the colored man who makes up the great mass of the Empire that lie is an inferior being (he is already treated as one) and will never be anything else. And the 3ame matter must be expound-

ml to Britain's'colored friends and allies outside the Empire. It is difficult to serve flort and mammon indefinitely. Jt is difficult to keep on uplifting the colored man for an indefinite number of years, and yet. convince him that lie is no whit farther advanced in a political sense than before lie was uplifted.

What the Australian wants to know is whether—

the Empire will make the defence of Australia against any attempt, to force open its gates to colored immigrants—be they Chinese, .lapanesc. Hindu. Burmese, or any other variety —as absolutely a part of the fmperial policy as the defence of London against an armed invasion.

If it will not, then Australia will prefer to take her chances alone. It is tfell to have the case so clearly stated against the existence of a piebald Km-pirc--"this glorious Kmpire which is mostly black, -brown, or yellow; which is mainly non-Christian, and largely polygamous, and which includes treedwellers, troglodytes, and eaters of dogs.'' While we are weighing this problem, presented to us with such brutal frankness by the editor of the Sydney Bulletin, it may be well to turn to the article of Aga Khan in the same Review. His Highness tells us that "India must remain one of the pillars of the British Kmpire—and a most important pillar, because she is to-day the Empire's greatest potential market and the greatest reservoir of man-power. - ' India from her vast reservoir can supply thousands where England only can supply hundreds: Canada could be absorbed by the United States. South Africa overrun, and Australia attacked before sufficient help from the Mother Country could reach t.hem. Yet India could put troops into South Africa as quickly as they could be sent from England: she could land soldiers in Australia long before England could do so; and forces from India could reach Western Canada almost as soon as from England. (Ircat Britain can only retain her unique position by frankly securing the co-operation of all her dominions and dependencies in the commercial and perhaps ultimately the military contest between herself and the modern military and naval European and American States. India supplies the men. while the self-governing dominions and the Mother Country supply the energy and directing force. Ilence it is imperative to give Indians the education to lit tbcni for their future role, in the British Kmpire.