WHITE AUSTRALIA.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17408, 20 March 1922, Page 4

WHITE AUSTRALIA.

NOSTHEBN TEREITOEY PROBLEM Ebc-Senator St. Ledger, who represented tho State of Queensland for many years in tho Commonwealth Parliament and who ia now viuiting New Zealand, delivered a lecture at R-angi-ora on Saturday, on the question of a White Australia, and that of the settlement of the Northern Territory. Mr St. Ledger said th&t through the failure of the Commonwealth iufoaiiiistration of tho Northern Territory, it was being widely assumed in New Zealand, ana, more strangely etill, by Mr Barwell, Prime Minister of South Australia, that tho Northern Territory, or portions of it, and also other portions of tropical Australia, were not suitable for the white man. Henoo it was argued that some arrangements should be made for the admission of alien xcfcos to those localities. Ho eaid emphatically from Lis experience; of the Northern Territory, that the failure to settle it by white people was mainly, if not solely, due to the unsound administration of the Commonwealth Government. If that Territory were administered on sound lines, such as until recently had been adopted by tho State of Queensland in tho matter of the/ sugar plantations, a subject with which: he was thoroughly familiar, he had no hesitation in saying that the Northern | Territory could be made almost ns j valuable an asset to the Commonwealth of Australia as undoubtedly Queensland I was.' The question whether in the low tropical coast lands of the Northern I Territory the white man could settle and develop agricultural industries was, after all. not a question of th© "White Man's Burden," but a question of the white woman being able to rear and bring up a family. Assuming, howover, that the white woman was not fitted for that burden, it must be remembered that tho coast land area as compared with the rest of the eastern and northern tropical, and sub-tropical territory was less tlsan one-tenth of the total available area in which tho white man and white woman were settled, and where they could live and increase as well as in any other State in Australia. He held that Australia's primary duty was first of all to fill all those available spaces as rapidly as possible with a white population, and Tynen that was done, and the white population was sufficient in numbers to become an effective barrier against any race that might afterwards be introduced into those low tropical coast lands, then, and not till then, should the question of tho introduction of coloured labour be seriously considered.

Mr St. Ledger said he would like to emphasise the point that if Australia was compelled to-day, or in the near future, to modify the White Australia policy, and to admit those alien races, then, in his opinion, it was certain that New Zealand would be compelled to follow on the same lines, for in that policy the two countries were one and indivisible. For that reason, therefore, he thought it advisable to stimulate interest in that question in New Zealand.