602 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION P. 



is allowed to come in to take their place. The whole thing hangs on 

 colored labor. The white man cannot worh in that sun. There is no 

 doubt about that. There are so few Chinamen left that they will only 

 work for a European for high wages." At present the dwindling 

 population amounts to about 3,000, of whom only 800 are whites, the 

 rest being colored. 



A letter was addressed some time ago by Dr. Spencer, of Enmore, 

 New South Wales, to the Sydney Daily Telegraph, in which he relates 

 his experience as a medical man in Northern Australia. The letter 

 was considered sufficiently important to be quoted by Senator Dobson 

 in the Federal Parliament. The writer narrates numerous cases in 

 which he witnessed men falling victims to a climate for which nature 

 had not adapted them, and proceeds as follows : — " Let capitalists be 

 invited to rent tracts of tropical Australia upon specific conditions of 

 investment. Let the lessees be authorised to import colored labor for 

 agricultural purposes upon condition of repatriating every imported 

 laborer on the expiration of his indenture. No capitalist will employ 

 white men at tropical labor, for which only the colored man is fit. If 

 one maintains that the agricultural riches of tropical Australia can be 

 developed by white labor, he is either a deluder or is deluded." 



Mr. C. B. Shawe, a trustworthy citizen, writing to the Melbourne 

 Argus, twelve months ago, said : — " I have lived 40 years in the tropics, 

 and know that the white man cannot personally work the land. He 

 can guide, direct, supervise, and profit by it when worked by colored 

 labor. A third generation of pure whites in the tropics is a feeble 

 rarity, and a fourth is imknown. How, then, is the white man going 

 to colonise tropical Australia ? If necessary, a color line could be 

 drawn, south of which these immigrants are not to come." 



In opposition to the visionary and unscientific absurdities of Messrs. 

 Barton, Deakin, Keid, Kingston, Forrest, and other self-interested 

 partisans of the " White Australia " movement, I place the opinion of 

 Mr. Coghlan, formerly Government Statistician of New South Wales, 

 and now Agent- General for that State in London. In his " Seven 

 Colonies of Australia, 1899-1900," he says— "A considerable area of 

 the continent is not adapted for colonisation by European races. The 

 region with a mean summer temperature in excess of 95° Fahr. is the 

 interior of the Northern Territory of South Australia north of the 20th 

 parallel, and the whole of the country, excepting the seaboard, lying 

 between the meridians of 120° and 140°, and north of the 25th parallel 

 has a mean temperature in excess of 90° Fahr." In another paper the 

 same writer says — " The climate of the Northern Territory of South 

 Australia is extremely hot, except on the elevated lands. Altogether 

 the temperature of this part of the colony is very similar to that of 

 North Queensland, and the climate is equally unfavorable to 

 Europeans." To condense the statistics of Mr. Coghlan on page 5 

 of the volume referred to, Australasia, in the winter months, has 

 1,649,500 square miles with a temperature ranging from 60" to 80° 

 Fahr., and in summer 2,810,800 square miles with a temperature from 

 60° to 95°. But Professor Alleyne Ireland, the highest living authority 



