WHITE OR BLACK?

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 19, 23 January 1924, Page 7

WHITE OR BLACK?

TROPICAL AUSTRALIA

LEVERHULME AND CRITICS

SLOW PROGRESS BETTER THAN

RACE RISK.

{UNIIED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPTRIGHT.)

(Received 23rd January, 11 a.m.)

SYDNEY, This Day. Viscount Leverhulme, at a luncheon given by the National Club, replying to criticisms of his previous advocacy of coloured labour for the Northern Territory, reiterated his conviction that the Territory was the richest God ever bestowed upon man, but that there was no possibility of keeping it vacant and unoccupied.

It would not be in the best interests of Australia, and it would be undemocratic on the part of the working-man to refuse to cultivate cotton there in the only possible way, namely, by negro labour under the supervision of whites. He stressed the increasing employment of negroes in America in other than tho cotton-growing industries, and the decline of cotton production. The crop was insufficient to meet the world's demand, and, if the black man ceased cotton-growing, they were within | measurable distance of America becoming a cotton importing country. A great opportunity was open to Australia in cotton production. He added that these convictions were reached after extensive travel and considerable experience, and he accepted full responsibility for his statements, with no desire to retract or explain. CHAMPIONS WHITE HOPE Mr. H. E. Pratten, who presided, replied. He said that, although they respected Viscount Leverhulme as a capj tain of industry and a prince of comI merce, they did not agree with all his views. He had apparently overlooked the fact that the cotton industry of Australia was already a lusty infant. Next year they expected to export a million pounds worth of cotton grown by white labour. Even if they could produce the visionary £ICO,COO,CCO worth by black, labour, the democracy of the country would prefer that they should go slow/and stick to the white man: They preferred this to running the risk of having a recurrence of American racial troubles.