GERMAN IMMIGRANTS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 12732, 30 March 1909, Page 4

GERMAN IMMIGRANTS.

The arrival in the Commonwealth of a party of 130 Germans who have come out with the idea of forming a German settlement at Gayundah, in Queensland, ~s, says the Sydney Telegraph, a significant indication that the shrewd Teutons are becoming alive to the splendid prospects open k> them in Australia. And, judging by the statement of the leader of the party, they are likely to be followed by further contingents from the same country of origin. While Germans, like sturdy and healthy white immigrants from other European countries, are to be cordially welcomed as citizens of the Commonwealth, the Telegraph thinks that their tendency to form distinctively German settlements in the country of their adoption is by no means an advantage from the point of view of Australia as a whole. Racial watertight compartments are not desirable m any country, but the experience both of the United States and of the South American Republics is that, German immigrants are so strongly impressed by the sense of nationality that they exhibit a marked tendency to cling together in solid aggregations instead of merging readily with the "general population. Happily, it has been found both in the United States and in Brazil — whpfie there is a settlement of 300,000 German-speakincr people — that only the actual immigrants themselves practise this habit of segregation from the general mass of the population. Those children who are born in the new land from German fathers and nativeborn mothers have no special sympathies with their father's country. It is the nationality of the mother which dictates the national outlook of the children. Hence, where German immigrants marry Australian women, as they do in the grrent inaiority of cases, it may be anticipated that the next, generation will be entirely Australian in its symnathips. While the German immigrants are to be frankly welcomed as white men who will help to develon and to defend Australia, the Tele?rarh fd^ that there need be no delicacy in declaring that those who a™> familinr wit* 1 "British institutions from the outset, and who are ready to merge at o«re into tho broad stream of Australian life, onsfht — other things beiner equal — to obtain t*>o nrpferpivp. Britishers first, if the right sort can be obtained.