AUSTRALIA’S PROBLEM.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 August 1922, Page 11

AUSTRALIA’S PROBLEM.

FILLING ITS VAST EM£TY SPACES. POPULATION THE ONLY SECURITY. AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW.

(By

T. C. L.)

Said Lord Northcliffe, in his message to Australia and New Zealand on Empire day: Australia and New Zealand stand, as the twin trustees of the Empire’s destinies in the Pacific. They hold the balance between the East and the West; they are the outposts of the white race standing at their lonely posts thousands of miles away. What did the Pacific Pact bring to Australasia? Peace for the present, yes—but equally responsibility for the future. If Australia and New Zealand are to hold the position they have won they must face the future as bravely and with as much resolution as they grappled with the past. The solution lies ready to hand. If they are not to remain as the standing temptation to the ambition of neighbouring nations, the two Dominions must find a garrison for their empty spaces. But it is not a garrison that will be measured in platoons, in companies or in battalions. It is a garrison that will be counted in armies—not in armies of

soldiers trained to kill and to destroy, but armies of British settlers who will develop the untold wealth of the wilds and gather a rich harvest for themselves and for their nation.

In the brave old days of the pioneers there were no nominated jobs to go to, yet somehow the settlers succeeded. If the waster went to rne wall the good man won through. Everyone must find his level in the building of a young nation, and the man who lias the courage to seek a new world has probably the energy to make good in it once he gets there. And above all, Australians must greet them warmly as the Canadians do, and drop that contemptuous and foolish word “Pommy” which they apply to the immigrants. New Zealand is naturally anxiqps to keep her splendid country as pure an efficient and as essentially all British as it is at present. Let her leaders look to the provisions of the Empire Settlement Bill—the old country’s latest and greatest pledge to the Dominions that her interests and theirs are as one —to find the high class of settler that she demands. The other Britain 'beyond the seas needs other Britons to keep it British. Australia and New Zealand have a great part to play in the future. They must have the men to help them to play that part if they are to be kept secure for the sons and the unborn sons of the present generation of heroes, our great Dominions in the South must have people, people, and again more people. And they must treat th.'? new comers with warmth and respect. Britain has too many newly returned emigrants who are warning our villages that British folk are not welcomed.

These are grave words that should not be lightly cast aside by Australians and New Zealanders who have any regard for the future of their countries. For they are pregnant with truth and warning. Australia and New Zealand are not to-day in any danger, thanks to the Pacific Pact —and the British Navy. But what of the future?

AN EMPTY CONTINENT. i 1 A visitor to Australia is impressed by < two things, the size of the principal 1 cities and the comparative emptiness of i the spacibus country. It 18 crying out - for population,-but, with the exception 1 of Western Australia is doing -little to i attract and obtain immigrants, Rather 1 the reverse, for there is in evidence al- 1 most on all sides a great antipathy to- « wards the English immigrant, the 1 “Pommy.” Lord Northcliffe noticed this, i as indeed any observing visitor must do. < The average Australian forgets that but 1 for the British Navy he could never ’ maintain his “White Australia” policy 1 one single day longer than the Japs al- J lowed him to. Some of the thinking Australians realise the danger besetting Australia, and 1 are really concerned about the future. I was much impressed with the remarks 1 of one prominent citizen, who is as well ; known to New Zealanders as to Australians. He knows the whole continent intimately, for he has . travelled all through it, and more than once has the overland journey from Adelaide to the Gulf of Carpentaria. He has met ■and mixed with the Japanese in the northern parts, he has visited the East, and knows the conditions and opinions of the teeming millions as few colonials do. ’He talked to me of the peril facing Australia, not immediately but in the course of fifteen or twenty years. This is what he said:— THE MENACE OF ASIA. " Asia has from time immemorial tended periodically to increase its population faster than its means of subsistence. Such a state of affairs is unavoidable if virgin agricultural lands are not available; of agricultural methods are not tremendously improved; if there be no natural check to human increase by plague or famine; or if there be no deliberate limitation. To-day it is accepted that the invasions which culminated in that of the Mongolian hordes of Zenghis Khan in the 13th century had their (real origin in the hopeless struggle for .existence experienced by these people in ! their own lands. Since the end of the 150 years of warfare conducted by Zenghis and his successors when their armies were fighting from the Yellow Sea to the Indus and the Danube, racial wars, but for skirmishes, have ceased. For several hundred years after the awful massacres by Zenghis, when repeatedly hundreds of thousands of people .perished by the sword, and millions, on millions more perished by the famines -and the pestilences inseparable from mediaeval and prehistoric warfare, there wwas little or no pressure on Asiatic population. The human wastage took long to repair, even in the fecund East. DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. Meanwhile, Europe was increasing -rapidly e in spite of its comparatively j petty internecine squabbles, its frequent I -famines and plagues. Then the discovery £ of America opened the door for emigration. To-day there are over 120 million , t&V&opcaAs in South

that Europe could never have held. In addition, it is safe to assume that Europe contains a hundred million people it could not have sustained but for the discovery of America, which, in addition to its enormous exports of food, supplied the new and important food plants, the potato and maize. But the importance of America within the last balf-centufr/ has lain in its absorption cf the surplus European unskilled population. In this respect, the East could not have helped to relieve the European human pressure unless war and the extermination or enslavement of many of its people had |®ccured. India, which we have held more or less for 200 years, has never given Britain relief from her surplus population by emigration, for obvious reasons, although it has helped to feed the kingdom, and has been a profitable field for employment of the middle classes. Meanwhile Asia, too, has increased her population tremendously, partly owing to the tendency of the human race to increase in geometrical ratio and partly to modern methods reducing the dangers from famine and pestilence. That these dangers have not disappeared in the East was seen recently in China, where it was estimated 20,000,000 people in one province were starving through the failure of crops two years in succession, and that not more than a fourth survived till next harvest, in spite of everything that was done to relieve the distress. If these starving millions knew that by risking their lives in warfare there was a bare possibility of saving them would it be difficult to lead them to any invasion? India, too, has multiplied enormously, yet the welfare of the general people has increased, thanks to British energy, self-sacrifice, and genius. But, unlike China, she sees visions of a nation’s aggrandisement. Unlike China, she has the opulent foreigner in her midst. Unlike China, she is controlled (and that it is for her own good is no matter) by the alien. Discontent, especially political discontent, is rife. The rumblings become more distinct. THE PROBABLE STORM CENTRE. Now we come to the probable storm centre, Japan. In that country, small for an Asiatic empire, including Formosa and Sakhalin, barely twice the size of Victoria, population has been increasing with the same rapidity as in other parts of the world during the past few decades. In 1891 the population of Japan proper was under 41 millions, butby 191 G it had increased to 55 A million r while that of Great Britain was millions. It is cJaimed that all the arable land which can be profitably cultivated is now utilised, and the rural population is crowding into the towns. But there the struggle for existence is

no less severe. During the war the prosperity of the manufacturers increased, and wages rose, as they did elsewhere. But now that markets for exports are becoming curtailed the statesmen feel that they must look to emigration. In Australia we content ourselves with the assumption that there is ample room for Japanese expansion on the Asiatic mainland, in Manchuria and Siberia particularly. But is this really so? Remember it is the unskilled labourer who, with his lusty family, it is desirable to deport. Doubtless these countries and even China will provide outlets for Japanese capital and constructive energy, but that capital will employ Japanese unskilled labour is more than doubtful, seeing the vast supplies of patient, hardworking Chinese labour that is available. And it is extremely doubtful whether the Japanese labourer would be content to accept the low wage now ruling for the coolie in China and Manchuria—lower than that in Japan.

EYES ON AUSTRALIA, What then is left? Naturally the Japanese turns his eyes to America,, to Canada, and to Australia, where conditions of life are easy; indeed to him luxurious for the working man, and wages are fabulous. Are such countries and conditions not much more worth fighting for than a share in the present Asiatic pressure for existence? He sees a light facing him wherever he looks —in Siberiaagainst the Bolsheviks, in China against the hostile natives, and elsewhere against those of European race. Evidently he must fight someone if his aspirations towards what the Anglo-Saxon considers only reasonable conditions of life are to be fulfilled. Japanese women and children even are ground down as no European nation would tolerate. By last official statistics no less than six hundred thousand women were working 12-hour shifts in factories, while, in addition, over one hundred and ten thousand. females under 15 years of age were also employed. It has been officially admitted this is bad for health, and that they do not last longer than a few years, but callously it is added the supply is greater than the demand. Forty-seven thousand women, and 12,0.00 females under the age of twenty are employed underground in coal mines. Doubtless these unfortunate people would prefer an easier mode of life, and the Australian method would be to pass legislation of a prohibitive nature. An apparently simple enough solution, but in Japan it is believed it would mean starvation for these women. Can it be wondered therefore that those who are intelligent eagerly turn their eyes and thoughts to more favoured lands; to such lands, as California, where tens of thousands of their more fortunate brethren are comfortably settled, but where newcomers are debarred; to Australia, whose conditions they qan read of, but which bolts the door in their faces? Although little is said by the Japanese press about Australia, its great resources and its emptiness of human beings are well known. DEPENDENT UPON THE SEA. Strikes have shown us how dependent we are on the sea for the distribution of our domestic supplies. Whether it be a hold-up by Newcastle miners, by seamen, or by stewards, our industries promptly suffers, because there is no alternative means for distribution of Newcastle coal. Consider the effect of a huge battle-cruiser with, say two or three submarines, off Newcastle, not to mention other units round our coasts. Recollect that immediately submarines appealed in the Aegean the Queen ‘Elizabeth and other capital ships retreated to British waters. '“But,” say the critics, “our enemy would have no base.” With out many natural harbors unprotected, isolated by want of rail communication, it is not safe to rely on that as a secur- : ity. And the Carolines are within two days’ cruiser steam of Townsville. ' Japan virtually owns the Carolines. Above all, a naval blockade might so m- ■ terfere with ou! overseas supplies of i liquid fuel, cotton, and other necessities 4 of warfare, in addition t? our

internal industries, that it is within the bounds of possibility surrender would be compulsory before a British fleet could arrive.

All these are possible happenings, first because Japan is so overcrowded and the struggle for individual existence is so intense that the export of numbers of lier surplus population will soon be imperative if many are not to starve; second, because Australia is close at hand and largely unoccupied, although her people claim that it is capable of supporting a population of from 50 to 100 millions, and that, too, while 20 millions of her near neighbours are starving. Now is this vaunting of the supposed capacity of Australia while the door is shut—by paper *cts of Parliament — against the entrance of pur late allies, against the men who helped convoy cut troops in safely to fight for our liberties a wise and judicious policy? And is it true? Of the answer to the first question there can be no doubt. To the second' the majority of people here will also answer yes. A BACK DOOR ENTRANCE. At pijQgent an enemy invading Darwin would starve were his supplies by sea cut off. With a transcontinental railway he could plan to invade the south. In the absence of bridges of any size no section could 'be so destroyed that it could not be replaced with the utmost despatch. With the advent of complete efficiency 'in wireless communication the importance of Darwin as a cable landing ha-s ceased to exist. Railway communication, while it would permit troops to be hurried across the continent to a township of 1,000 white civilians, may also afford an invader a backdoor entrance to our popular centres. Is it worth the risk, agreements with South Australia notwithstanding?

It behoves •every citizen to face the possibilities, indeed the probabilities, of the future. To estimate them there is no better plan than to consider the position from the possible antagonists point of view. If that be not possible (and it is always difficult), then the next wise course is to weigh all circumstances which may lead to the formation of a hostile policy on his part, It seems clear that no matter what may be the apparent and 4 immediate “casus belli” of the coming racial war, its real cause will be aa one—it will be oae

those wars which has been described as a biological war, the causes of which centre in the struggle for food supply. The population of Japan shows no tendency to limit its reproductivity, which probably exceeds anything known in England and Wales, where the population, despite immigration, quadrupled in flic 110 years ending 1911; and it has been estimated that if the same rate of increase were maintained for another 330 years, its population would exdeed that of the whole world at the present time. Different races (and there is little indicaition of the Asiatics reducing the rate) present a prospect which it is almost horrifying to contemplate. The struggle for existence is bound to become intense. It is already very evident in Japan and China. China-does not matter so much; it is accepted as the will of the gods. But Japan is not prepared to lie down to the dictates of either Nature or of the European. What better evidence do we require than her preparation for war, and for war not against any fcllowAsiatic race, else why the huge naval construction? NO RELIEF FROM AMERICA. Some comfort may be derived from the thought that the war will be confined with the United States. But that is no more certain than is the belief it will begin with that Country. The United States and Australia are almost equal in size. The United States contains about 110,000.000, and Australia 5,000,000. The United States alleges that it is .approaching repletion; Australia, that it ca’n sustain as many as the United States now sustains. Is it worth while picking a quarrel with a larger individual than oneself for material gain when a smaller is at hand, and the eventual gain much greater? Obviously, the contemplation of any aggression against Australia must take into consideration the certainty that Britiau and each of her Dominions will join in her defence. But India and Egypt, it is doubtless hoped, will keep the Motherland’s hands full: it is morally certain British troops would require immediate augmentation in these dependencies. South Africa’s native races would requirt* all her attention. Canada would herself be the scene of possible attack on land by troops; in any case, she would require defence by a fleet.

ANTI-BRITISH INFLUENCES. J The probable entrance of the bther, the American, moiety of the Anglo-Saxon race, with its vast resources, on Australia’s side in the conflict would also be borne in mind. But America has no standing army, her fleet would be farther from our shores than that of the enemy, at the outbreak of hostilities, and she would probably take so long to make up her mind that her intervention might! be too late. Besides, she might deem, it none of her business, secretly glad that the energies of Japan were dei fleted from her own direction. Many of the influences controlling the policies of the United States are distinctly antiBritish. and thpse influences would, all be used to prevent, at least delay, that country’s participation in our defence. Therefore, in preparation for the aps proaching conflict of races we must look to our own means of defence primarily. And we must honestly estimate our resources for war as for peace. Above all, we should cease to incite the envy of a powerful nation by fruitless boasting of resources which have not been proved to exist, and which, if they do exist, we have made no attempt to develop, but persistently object to their development by other nations and races. Our patroy of exclusiveness incites, and is bound, tpt incite, Japanese hostility, but the Jep* anese especially must recognise that ideal of racial purity is a, worthy one, and so long as they feel there is not room for a division of the infertility ofi the empty portion, it is possible we ary. be allowed to. remain in peace, providedl we maintain a sufficient supply of powteJ der and keep it dry.

These are the views of one -pf leading and best informed men of Am-* tralia. They serve to set one thmkiQgi very hard. What he said about Aws* tralia applies equally to New country that can easily sustain a jjopsM lation of twenty millions. Its fertiifcity and resources are not known to rest of the world. We take good caxia of that. If Australia is menaced, thesefore, so must we 'be, and, to retain tiref country for the British race, we must, in. conjunction with Australia, seek secure the exploitation of our natuun resources aud more and more