When Australia was Racist: The White Australia Policy

[An Australian on Gab was talking about the White Australia policy. This is something important. In my view, the USA and Canada also succeeded BECAUSE they were RACIST. e.g. all immigrants came from Europe. The Australians had a firm racial policy. Jan]

This is what the Australian wrote:-

“Edmund Barton, the first prime minister and a founding father of Federation often seen as one of the great Australians, declared that the whole of Australia was determined to preserve “the purity of race”. He said that the doctrine of the equality of man was not intended to include racial equality. “These races are, in comparison with white races … unequal and inferior.”

Alfred Deakin, the second prime minister and usually listed among the top four or five of all time, said Australians were united in the “unalterable resolve” that the new Commonwealth would mean a White Australia and that “from now henceforward all alien elements within it shall be diminished”. Deakin argued that White Australia was a guiding principle for the nation, akin to the Monroe Doctrine, which became a principle of United States foreign policy by opposing interference of outside powers in the Americas.

John Watson, third prime minister and first Labor PM, spoke of the disturbing influence of coloured people in “the piebald north”. He said the north was a national “cancer spot”.

George Reid, fourth prime minister, said Australians had agreed that the “current of Australian blood shall not assume darker hues”.

The architects of White Australia were convinced they were framing policies that would long outlive them. Isaac Isaacs, who was to become a High Court judge and the first Australian-born governor-general, said Australia would be free “for all time from the contaminating and degrading influence of inferior races”.”

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