THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1909. A WHITE AUSTRALIA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3127, 2 March 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1909. A WHITE AUSTRALIA.

The demand for a "White Aus'ralin" s one of which a good deal has been heard ever since the establishment of the Commonwealth began to produce a national in place of a provincial sentiment in its people. It took at first the direction of opposition to imported labour from the South Sea Island?, which it opposed ! mauily from its supposed tendency to reduce European work and wages. This problem, however, was at the time easily dealt with, and gave little reai anxiety to the statesmen of the Commonwealth, Of late the problem has reappeared, and this time on a scale which cannot be safely ignored, and yet cannot apparently be effectively dealt with by any means at the command of the Australian people. A glance at the geographical extent and at the position of the great island continent, is enough to suggest the problem; while a very trifling acquaintance with the conditions of Eastern Asia

should be enough to convince anybody of the Difficulty that must and will attend its solution. The problem of Asia, and to some extent of the world at large to-day, is the problem of population. Eastern and SouthEastern Asia are teeming with a vast population, greatly in excess of the capacity of the country to maintain it in anything approaching comfort and well-being. Java, Borneo, Sumatra, and Celebes, and then Australia, are the natural receptacles for the overflow of such a population is this. If it is true—and there seems but little doubt of its ti-uthfulness—that a third part of the human race is at present confined to the East and South-East of Asia, the question is, How long can it be kept there? This is the question which more than any other confronts Australia, and demands a speedy solution.