White Australia; the Empty North; the Reasons and Remedy
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
HC 605 M3 WHITE AUSTRALIA XX A A I THE EMPTY NORTH 1 1 1 i THE REASONS AND REMEDY 9 4 5 BY J. N, MACINTYRE SYDNEY W. C. PENFOLD & CO. LTD. VIVE.SITY OF CALIFORNIA \N DIEGO HC /'] -A,^?. WHITE AUSTRALIA Mr. and Mrs. J. N. MacINTYRE PEGGIE and JOCK MacINTYRE A WHITE AUSTRAL I THE EMPTY NORTH THE REASONS AND REMEDY BY J. N. MACINTYRE SYDNEY W. C. PENFOLD & CO. LTD. 88 PITT STREET 1920 W. C. Penfold & Co. I.td., Printers, SS Pitt Street, Sydney. — INTRODUCTION Mr. Maclntyre is to be commended on calling attention to the need for populating our Northern areas. The empty North menaces Australia. Its continued existence as a nation depends on our first line ,of defence being manned. It is not our back door we are leaving unguarded. It is not our hack yard that is empty. The historical processes, the evolution of Inter- nationalism, has made Northern Australia our front garden. That we have allowed it to be neglected, that we have built behind a wilderness, and then slothfully neglected to improve and beautify and protect the area from which our well-being may be assaulted, our independence be threatened, is unthinkably stupid^—and criminal. If Australia is to be held— it will be held in the North. If Australia is to be free from the aggression of marauders, it will only be because we have taken time by the forelock, and made it impregnable. It can only be made impregnable by settling the empty, inviting, healthy—but now neglected—North, with men who will make it their homeland, their holy of holies, their own. Empty North Australia menaces all Australia. The problem is Australia's. The menace must be removed by Australian action. Whatever differences, men- tal or moral, may exist in the minds of man, the..truth of the old adage remains unfractured, "God helps those who help themselves." To-day Australia can help herself effectively. If she continues in the "to-morrow" habit, a not distant "to-morrow" may dawn with an alien flag afloat over Northern Australia, and then the only continent, with "one people, one flag, one destiny," will have become a land of warring interests, a land of clash- ing strife, a land on which the sun of peace has set, a land facing the blood- real dawning of discord, schism and dissension. Mr. Maclntyre preaches a sane doctrine of Australianism for Australians. He shows where we have failed to make Australianism efficient. He points out our duty, not as the man of letters in, polished periods, but as the man of action, the man who has lived in the empty North and has seen all that its "vacuity" portends, who has read the portents and speaks as an Australian from the depths of his first-hand knowledge, the man who knows that until we set out to do our duty to Australia by making Australia safe for Australians, by utilising to their uttermost our Australian assets and potentialities, by making full use of our glorious heritage, the motto upon our coat of arms is a braggart's boast, or worse still, a weakling's aspiration. In his own way, the author has shown how to make good, the words that inspired the earliest Aus- tralians Advance Australia. JOHN H. C. SLEEMAN, Cliveden Mansions, Gregory Terrace, Brisbane, 31st Jan., 1920. " He that hath truth on his side is a fool, as well as a coward, ij he is afraid to own it, because of the multitude of other men's opinions. 'Tis hard for a man " to sa\), all the world is mistaken hut himself, but if it be so, who can help it ? —'DEFOE. ^ /j/"i rumderlandTumdt Srr; 'CArnheoi G .?N.Ll3le5 (,/)C.ErEbU5 /Grooft Ey;andt CA.R^E : DEDICATION actuated by three In dedicating this book to their Excellencies, I am distinct motives at Burketown of their Firstly—It was on the occasion of the reception helping to entertain a Represen- Excellencies that I first had the pleasure of first speech in public. tative of His Majesty the King and of making my Governor to Secondly—h^idy Goold Adams was the first wife of a presented with ; and on being pay Burketown a visit for many, many years Burketown, we were pleased to a separate address by the good ladies of address she had received from the ladies learn that it was the first separate of Queensland. with what Thirdly—Uis Excellency was so interested and impressed that I feel sure we can he saw and learnt on his visit through the country, taken by the Government thank him for the interest that has since been the claims of the Gulf for prosperity in our District, which at last looks as if will get a chance of proper recognition. PREFACE In June, 19 17, there came to little, forgotten, decaying, ill-used, un- known Burketown, an outpost of the Empire in the Gulf of North Queens- land, known as the town of goats, claypans, and glass bottles, their most Honourable Excellencies, Sir Hamilton John Goold Adams and Lady Goold Adams, determined to do his duty honourably and nobly to the glorious Empire that placed under his jurisdiction the State of Queensland. The Governor left no place unvisited that his valuable time permitted him to visit, and see for himself and to bring into closer contact even these despised outposts of the Empire, the courtesy and spirit of affection and nobleness that is the birthright of most of the nobility of John Bull, and which his delennined, dogged, democratic, and peace-loving rulers have the tact of choosing out of his millions to act as envoys for this purpose of Empire- building. We can all from our infancy look back with affection, reverence, and honour to our first knowledge of our State Governors. Mine dates from that glorious old gentleman, Sir Henry Wylie Norman, and with a par- ticular reference to Lord Chelmsford, who also visited Burketown, the list is complete up to his present Excellency. New South Wales can also echo, I feel sure, the same sentiment, and also the other States. In referring to his Excellency Sir Walter Davidson, also, I can only quote from the press of the day. Great as this admiration is for our State Governors, there are those who exclaim that our Commonwealth Peer, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson, is the "daddy" of the lot, and no one who feels and sees the sentiment towards his Excellency but can concur with those people (even although they have never come in contact with or set eyes on him). PART I — WHITE AUSTRALIA In the opening of the Annual Conference of the Municipalities of the State of New South Wales quite recently, his Excellency thus spoke : "Sir Walter Davidson said it gave him special pleasure to attend the conference, as he liked to be associated with the men of the country who were identified with primary production. He liked to be associated with the pioneers and descendants of the men who pioneered the country, and especially the men who stood for decentralisation of Government works in the interests of the community. Referring to the occurrence in the annual report of such old country terms as village, parish, and country, his Excellency remarked that he was pleased that the old style still applied in this new country. They could make another England in the South. He liked to be associated with them, because in wisely using their heads they could make their civilisation a greater and better one than that of the old country." The speech is typical of his contemporary in Queensland. I feel certain that the earnest wish and desire of all good Australians is to build up and make a better England in this glorious land of freedom that is set in the Southern Hemisphere and watched over by the "Southern Cross," and that the millions of all races of the old world will come to it and make an Australian nation ; that in the far distant future, when the sands of time have perhaps altered the map of the world and its races, Australia will be a monument of glory and strength and sentiment of the British Empire of its day. If ever human nature so changes as to forget its duties to that Empire—anyhow, it will not be able to deny the British Empire her living monument. It is open without doubt for Australia to become the wealthiest and most prosperous democratic nation in the world, and there is no doubt but that in due time that glorious position will be attained. Now, and for the immediate future, I would also say to the citizens of the Commonwealth, forget not the man who wears the "returned soldier's badge." Whatever his position, manner, or crime is, remember the badge is the emblem that has helped to save and protect for democracy the ideals of Christianity, this glorious flag of the Southern Cross; and if its wearers are needy or in distress— if no better gift can be oflfered, give at least courtesy and honour. One must not forget, either, that there are hundreds of those who wear not this badge whose soreness of heart for its absence should not be intensified either by reference to its absence. Not only can this be said of dozens of Scotchmen, Englishmen, Welshmen, and Irishmen, but hundreds of Australians, too. — 2 WHITE AUSTRALIA So that when those sons of the old land retire to the scenes of their early youth, their kinsmen can well be assured that their hearts were never out of step with the glorious patriotism of their kinsmen, and perhaps they were fighting a nobler battle in tending the home fires in their particular spheres of residence, and doing their duty not one whit less noble for Australia and the Empire than their kinsmen at home or on the fields of sacrifice.