NORTHERN AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 122, 25 May 1928, Page 9

NORTHERN AUSTRALIA

SCHEME FOR DEVELOPMENT COLOURED LABOUR (From "The Post's" ■ Representative.) SYDNEY, 16th May. Tho old and much-debated question of the abrogation of -tho White Australia policy is a scheme for tho development of the North has again . been raised. It has been suggested to the Federal Government that tho outlying northern belts of West Australia and Queensland, together with tho Northern • Territory, should be vested in it, cut up into three or four areas as Crown colonies, and later, on the attainment of a certain population, bo created States, under the Government of executive councils. Fundamentally, tho question involvod in the development and settlement of this great belt is one of defence, in view pi Australia's geographical insularity.' For that reason, it is argued, tho control of it should be vested in tho Commonwealth, with tho power temporarily to waive the "White Australia policy, and to employ coloured labour for tho bullocking pioneering work, on the strict understanding that labour is repatriated when it has paved tho way for properly-organised white settlement. The suggestion is that members of the native Indian army, as well-disciplined British subjects, could, when retrenched from tho military, be brought .to Australia to pioneer the' great north, under the control of native non-commissioned and British officers, and afterwards surrender that vast domain to the whites and go back home. The belief is expressed that, apart from anything olse they would form the nucleus of a big army ready at 2i hours' notieo in any emergency. Tho idea, it can safely be said, is not likely to be palatablo to tho Government or to tho community.