AUSTRALIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 174, 24 July 1923, Page 6

AUSTRALIA.

DISCOVERED BT CHINESE. TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO. (From Onr On Correspondent.) SYDNEY, July 30. Neither the British nor the Dutch seamen discovered Australia, if the story heard from a high Chinese official in Peking by Mr. William Quinn, a merchant, belonging to Invercargill, New Zealand, is true. According to the official, this country was discovered by the Chinese, probably by the crew of. a junk blown far out »£ ■ her. course. This.information, said the official, was gleaned from a book in the archives of China called "The Classic of Mountain md Flood," which, until recently, had been regarded as a fable, but which the Chinese were now beginning to think was i true etory of adventure. In the book, which has been proved to >c 2000, and which ia perhaps 3000, years »ld, there is reference to a large island lying far to the south-west in which the ran rose in a different direction. Features of the coast line as described nrhich coincide with hte Australian coast. In the same book the Pyramids and the ■Sphinx are also described, the exact number of the former being given. Mr. Quinn, who arrived by the Tango Maru, says that the White Australia policy was frequently mentioned to him, md when asked the reason for it he juite satisfied his interrogators' by explaining the dominance of the working slags in democratic countries, and their natural objection to the competition of cheap labour.