AUSTRALIA'S PERIL

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 162, 8 January 1912, Page 6

AUSTRALIA'S PERIL

A,BIG KENNEL. WITH A SMALL DOG. A special message to the Dunedin Star from Auckland last week stated: In Auckland at the present time there are eight New South Wales Parliamentarians, who are naturally much interested in the startling proposition put forward by Professor Caldecott (professor of mental and moral philosophy at King's College, London) that, in order to make a white Australia more stable, Great Britain should hold the eastern half of Australia and Germany the western half. Mr. J. C. L. Fitzpatrick, M.L.A., one being interviewed, said the only way such a wild and frenzied scheme could be carried out would be at the point of the bayonet. The British nation as a whole would resent the proposition. At the same time, added Mr. Fitzpatrick, there was no denying that Australia occupied a more or less dangerous position for lack of defenders. Two or three years ago he, had visited Java, and when he returned he delivered a series of lectures upon the grave danger threatening Australia from the East. He was thoroughly convinced of the reality of the risk of a yellow invasion. Australia, with her total population of 4y 3 millions and her huge areas of rich country absolutely unpeopled in the north, appeared as an attractive prize to the crowded millions who were in the archipelago. There were 40 millions of Javanese within 40 hours' sail of the Northern Territory. He was not one of those who treated the danger lightly;, and he was inclined to agree with the recent English visitor to the Commonwealth who referred to Australia as a very largo kennel with a very small dog inside. The only real remedy, in Mr. Fitz■patrick's opinion, was to encourage all the immigration possible, whether English, Scotch, Irish or European. He was not in favor of any embargo on nationality so long as it was white, and the people conformed to the Australian methods of living. For that reason ho was opposed to any form of legislation which would keep out a white man simply because he was not British. There was every reason for maintaining the purity of race so far as Asiatics were concerned, but that was as far as the embargo should go. He had seen a good deal of the Northern Territory, and the opinions expressed by Professor Gilnith, of Melbourne, while in Auckland a few days ago, ancnt the reality of the danger of Asiatic invasion coincided with the sentiments which he (Mr. Fitzpatrick) had . expressed publicly several years ago. The Northern Territory was quite capable of development by white men, and the only remedy was a vigorous immigration policy.