AUSTRALIA AND THE JAPANESE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVI, Issue 14909, 29 November 1912, Page 2

AUSTRALIA AND THE JAPANESE.

♦ ' AY.Hi.TE AUSTRALIA POLICY. ' ! Mr E. A. Palmer, of the firm of ! Palmer :ind Son, has returned to Syd- '• liey by the Japanese, boat alter visiti liilc England, America and tho East. ; tho trio extending over seven mouths. I ■•lt seems to rae," said Mr Palmer. j "'that there is trouble ahead of Aus|i'ia!:a because of this confounded j AYhite Australia. policy. Coming ! through China arid Japan. I saw popui iation which was choking for an outlet. i They teemed in millions. On the little i islands of Japan it seemed to me that ■, they would soon slop over into the sea. | And then when I came down the eoast I of. our groat continent, where there is I hardly a fly. let alone a man, to the ' mile, I saw the difference. Xow, these popple v.'rui't stand this sort of thing j-for lung. If England gets her navy tied up in the North idea, where will i v>-e be wi;b ou- little squibs of irar- ; ships? ''be Jnpaneso bitterly resent J our exclusion policy. Their view is , that we regard them as dogs and i scum. The. Jap. is a. brainy man, and | one of the things he doesn't like is I being rated on an equality with a I Chinaman. AA'e can't expect to have ; a big place like Australia all to our--1 si'lves. Tho Japs, say they want all their population for their own couni trv. hut in mv view this is onlv talk. { " THE JAP. BUSINESS JUAN. • ! "It used to ho considered,'' con--1 tinned Mr Palmer, "that tho Jap. was ; a somewhat slippery customer in bnsi- : ness. '.Pilings have, however, changed | since tnon. When Japan was struggling for recognition as a. first-class I Power it was only the. lower-class man ' who went in lor business, and his ! moral standard, it must be conceded, j was not high. But now the educated J'au. has supplanted him and his one aim appears to be to remove the old stain, end his greatest ambition is to induce tho Kuropoaii to trust him. He has succeeded, and he is trying to deserve and maintain it. In all my own business relations with them I received nothing but the best treatment.' NO INTERMARRIAGE, - ! I met an American on the . boat j who had proposed to try and grow j cotton in the Northern Territory, but | lie abandoned the idea when he. found | he would not bo allowed to utilise cheap I Asiatic labour. The principal argument against the admission of Asiatics appears to me to be that of racial purity. Tho cry is, ' AVe do not want a piebald nation.' But if they are allowed .in will that occur? In America there is no racial trouble of. j this kind. You rarely see a cross between a black and white. He is a social pariah where he does exist, and is not wanted by cither black or white. But the present Australian legislation is a direct incentive to intermarriage. .The law admits a Chinaman, but not his wife. AYe!l, Chinamen are only human, and they will get a white wife whenever they can. It strikes me that if they closed up ParliamentHotise 'like they have closed un Government House it would be all" ;fcke i ( better for the country,/ j