The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1901. AUSTRALIA'S COLOUR QUESTION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 52, 2 March 1901, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1901. AUSTRALIA'S COLOUR QUESTION.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the mon. that needs resistance, For the future in the distanco, And the food that we oan dt.

There are a good many debatable points in the scheme of policy thatMr Barton has brought forward, but nothing is likely to raise stronger feeling than the declaration for a "white Australia." In most of the Federal States there is a great and growing prejudice in favour of reserving Australia for the Australians. But in Queensland and the Northern Territory the general impression is that black labour is essential to the development of the country, and that the interests of the northern states should not be sacrificed to a false and sentimental patriotism. The Queensland newspapers are taking up the cry with vehemence; and there are prospects of a stormy session for the first Federal Parliament.

There is no doubt about the importance of this black labour question to Queensland. Last year Queensland exported nearly £2,000,000 worth of sugar, which was far more than Australia could absorb. At present there are about 100,000 acres planted in cane; over £6,000,000 are invested in the industry; 25,000 persons are employed; and over £1,000,000 are distributed every year in wages and general expenses of cultivation. In the great centres at Mackay, Cairns, Bundaberg, and Maryborough, there are large mills equipped with the best modern machinery. Great as the industry has grown to be, it is capable of indefinite extension. There are huge areas of suitable land along the east coast between the mountains and the sea, and when the northern scrub land is cleared, further large areas will be available. Now the difficulty about the sugar industry is that it either requires, or is supposed to require, black labour. It has been proved by experience—at least, so the sugar planters say —that white men cannot stand the climate or the work, so that it must be done by men inured to the peculiar hardships of tropical life.

Thus the kanaka trade arose in Queensland. The days of "black- | birdiug" are over, and the kanakas are admitted under stringent legislative enactments. They are indentured for three years; they are confined by law to the plantations to which they belong; they are not allowed to engage in other work, such as ploughing, horse driving, or factory work, in which they could compete with whites. In addition to these, large numbers of Orientals have been attracted from tropical Asia by the advantages offered on the plantation.. According to the last returns there are in Queensland about 10,000 Chinese, about 8500 Pacific Islanders, over 3000 Japanese, 350 Javanese and 2220 miscellaneous Asiatics. There are Ihus at least 24,000 aliens in Queensland, mostly engaged on the plantations; in fact, some of the sugar districts are said to swarm with Ori entals and Kanakas. It is loudly asserted and firmly believed in Queensland that sugar planting, the most valuable of all Queensland industries, could neither expand nor exist on profitable scale without this iutrodt tion of alien labour. The opponents of black labour insist that the sugar plantation work can be done by whites under favourable conditions: that is with limited hours of work and at a reasonable rate -of wages. They urge with much reason that the loAVest and worst class of aliens are attracted to the plantations;. and that they have already become a great and growing social danger. But so long as the sugar -planters can get coloured labour at £1 a week and found they are not likely to trouble much about the social ethics of the question; nor are they likely to employ white men who demand higher wages. Altogether it is a very pretty industrial and social problem, and it affords room for a very serious conflict between different sections of the Federal States- In a few years Aus* tralia may have to face a black problem as portentous as that which now confronts America. In the meantime New Zealand may feel easy aboulj the matter so long as she watches developments as a disinterested onlooker from the outside.