 |
A White Western Australia
The Alien
Across a land once virgin-good
A trail of greed and lust he leaves,
And o'er its virile nationhood
Degeneration's spell he weaves
To tempt our maidens and our wives
With many a tawdry, tinselled snare
To undersap their loyal lives,
The Alien comes -
BEWARE! BEWARE!
|
 This
extract from the racist verse 'The Alien' is taken from Jarrahland Jingles
(1908) by E.G. 'Dryblower' Murphy, the first book of poetry published in
Western Australia by a local poet. His poems were often comical, sometimes
lyrical, and always accessible to ordinary people, being regularly published
in newspapers like the Coolgardie Miner, the West Australian,
and the Sunday Times and enjoyed by thousands of readers. As a populist
'Dryblower' wrote about the experiences of ordinary people from all around
the State, reflecting their interests and concerns, writing in the manner
of a bush poet entertaining his mates around a campfire at night.
'The Alien' reflects the popular prejudices and paranoia of the time. That
some of the first Acts passed by the inaugural Federal Parliament in 1901
were intended to safeguard a White Australia by restricting the use of Kanak
and coloured labour and regulating immigration on the basis of race, reflects
the beliefs and values of the time. Certainly in Western Australia, the
institution of a 'White Australia Policy' was seen by most citizens as both
sensible and prudent.
Racism was a natural part of Western Australian society at the time of Federation.
Public figures like the editor of the Kalgoorlie Miner, John Kirwan
worried about 'millions of Chinese or Asiatics [being] allowed to swarm
over the vast Australian Continent', writing
"Without restriction race purity could not be maintained.
The inhabitants of Australia would quickly become a mixed breed, inferior
probably to the residents of Central and South America. Australians do
not like to contemplate the prospects of their descendants after a couple
of generations being tinted with Chinese or other Asiatic blood, and probably
minus every British characteristic. There are thousands of half-caste
Chinese, Javanese, Malays and Aborigines in Port Darwin and the Northern
Towns of Queensland. Nowhere in Australia does vice and lawlessness flourish
with greater freedom. The northern portion of Australia is indeed a warning
to the people of the rest of the Continent against that race contamination
which the indiscriminate admission of coloured immigrants would sooner
or later inevitably bring about. In addition to this consideration Australians
do not forget that Australia is the last of the world's great spaces that
remain to be peopled. It is now held by what may be regarded as a white
garrison numbering some three and three quarter millions of Europeans,
whose mission is to preserve it as part of the British Empire for the
surplus white people of Europe." [John Kirwan, The Empire Review,
1904]
The new Federal Parliament moved immediately to institute a White Australia
Policy. Racist fears about miscegnation and anticipated moral corruption
played into a xenophobic fear of invasion from the north and the fear of
cheap labour throwing white Australians out of work. The second Act passed
by the new Parliament in 1901 was one to restrict immigration to Australia
on the basis of race. Given the tone of letters to newspapers and of newspaper
editorials, there is little doubt that Parliament reflected the mood and
the will of the Australian people. It was clear that for non-whites living
in Australia there was no room aboard the HMS Commonwealth.
|
|
