A WHITE AUSTRALIA. 229 



England. Would not Australians be justified in expelling 

 any convicts from New Caledonia entering the Common- 

 wealth without lawful authority ? Self-preservation is the 

 first law of nations, as of individuals. Yet it comes upon 

 one with some degree of surprise, that one of the Victorian 

 Judges (Mr. Justice Hartley-Williams) expressed an opinion 

 on the case as follows :— 



•'I have been for years, in common with, I believe, very many 

 others, under the delusion (us I must term it) that we enjoyed in 

 this colony (Victoria) responsible government in the proper sense 

 of the term. I awake to find, as far as my opinion goes, that we 



have merely an instalment of responsible government We 



are at present without the legal means of preventing the scum or 

 de*peradoes of alien nationalities from landing on our territory 



It will be evident that very serious questions were 

 involved in the case of Toy, some of which remain in doubt 

 probably to the present time ; for the judgment delivered 

 by the Privy Council (as already set forth) does not enter 

 into any consideration of the wide questions discussed in 

 some of the individual judgments of the Supreme Court 

 Bench in Victoria. To what extent these questions may 

 be modified, if at all, by the later inauguration of the 

 Commonwealth is not yet apparent. 



Virility of Australians. -Passing on however from this 

 purely legal aspect, to the wider question of the physical 

 fitness of the white races for the successful colonisation 

 of Australia, there is a preliminary but important and per- 

 tinent inquiry which needs to be instituted, as to whether 

 the present white population of the southern portions of 



