Administration of the white Australia policy

The origins of the White Australia ideal lie in the early days of white settlement of the continent; its history has been adequately covered. The official report on the importation of Indian hill coolies in 1841, the rush of Chinese to the goldfields of Victoria and New South Wales in the 18gos and to Queens land in the 1870s, the indenture of Kanakas for the Queensland cane-fields-these events were the major steps in the emergence and consolidation of a latent, ever-present hostility towards the entry of non-Europeans. By the late 1880s it had become a burning issue; and there was a change which saw virtually unorganized opposition to the Chinese grow to almost national sentiment,

Why had the changes come about? There were economic reasons, mainly the fear of cheap labeur competition. Racial prejudice was growing. There was the inarticulate formulation of the Australian 'ethos' and there were the imagined dangers to this ethos which could result from the existence of a large and permanently umassimilable minority. There were all these elements and more, but it would be less than profitable to attribute a hierarchy of importance to them. The ideal, the reasoning and the attendant problems are no Australian mono poly. An almost identical experience has taken place in the West Coast states of America, as it has in British Columbia and in New Zealand. The historical and geographical circum stances were similar, as were the human reactions and the ultimate legislative outcome. There is no dearth of material on the subject.