346 KFW SOUTH WAT.ES. 



benefits to the working class wliicli will accrue from tlio union of tlie 

 Colonies on a democratic basis^ and also the evils that would a.ttend 

 white labour throug-h a large introduction of the coloured races. The 

 representative sent by the London Timr-s (Miss Shaw)^ after visiting 

 Northern Queensland, has reported " that the maintenance and exten- 

 sion of the coloured labour system must lead to the division of 

 Australia into two sections — tropical Australia and temperate Aus- 

 tralia." The labour leaders therefore advocate that it is most desirable 

 that the Australian Continent should not be divided into antagonistic 

 northern and southern states, with coloured labourers as a standing 

 menace to the working of free institutions like the African negroes are 

 found to be in America; but that the Federal Parliament should con- 

 trol the admission, into any of the states, of undesirable colonists who 

 may otherwise, before the end of the century, materially interfere with 

 the social conditions of the whole of Australasia. 



The proximity of China, Japan, and India to Australia renders the 

 latter easily accessible to hundreds of millions of the Asiatic races, 

 and in this nearness to these Eastern human hives is seen one of the 

 great dangers to the preservation of the present homogeneity of the 

 Anglo-Saxon race on the southern continent. NotAvithstandiug the 

 edict against Chinese coming to the United States, it is officially 

 reported that numbers find their v\^ay over the Pacific to British 

 Columbia, who after payment of a poll-tax of £10 to the Canadian 

 Government cross a boundary extending thousands of miles in length 

 into the United States ; and it is feared that as there are only similar 

 imaginary border lines in Australia a like condition of affairs is com- 

 mencing on the mainland, especially as no poll-tax is levied on servile 

 labour coming into the Northern Territory. The question of the 

 permanent settlement of coloured races in Australia may shortly 

 become a matter of international complication, as it is stated that the 

 Colonies as they are have no international rights ; but with a united 

 government their claims to recognition would not be so readily denied. 

 An intercolonial conference is about being held in Sydney to consider 

 the desirability or not of these Colonies giving due notice that they 

 are prepared to make the treaty concluded between Japan and Great 

 Britain applicable to Australasia ; and the results of this meeting of 

 representatives from the various Colonial Governments are looked 

 forward to with much interest by colonists, who, in view of 25,000 

 Japanese demanding the franchise in the Hawaiian group, are not in 

 favour of a large influx into the continent of even this intelligent, 

 ambitious, and warlike race from their now overcrowded island home, 

 as they would be far more dangerous as citizens than the com- 

 paratively inoffensive Kanakas from the South Seas. 



Financiers and capitalists also acknowledge the good that would 

 accrue from colonial union, and Mr. Reginald J. Black has recently 

 asserted that, under a federal executive, a great saving could be 

 effected in the money expended for defences, and that even the cost 

 of a federal government might be recouped from savings made on 

 many overlapping services carried on by the several Colonies. He has 

 also shown that if one hundred millions of the public debts of the 

 Australasian (Jolonies were taken over and consolidated by a Federal 

 Government, Australian federal bonds wiuld be regarded with equal 



