the influence of immigration on australia's national character

THE INFLUENCE OF IMMIGRATION ON AUSTRALIA'S NATIONAL CHARACTERAuthor(s): ALEXANDER DOWNERSource: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 115, No. 5127 (FEBRUARY 1967), pp. 190-202Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and CommerceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41369862 .

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THE INFLUENCE OF IMMIGRATION ON

AUSTRALIA'S NATIONAL CHARACTER

The Sir Thomas Holland Memorial Lecture by HIS EXCELLENCY THE HON. SIR ALEXANDER DOWNER ,

K.B.E. , M.A.

High Commissioner for Australia in the United

Kingdom , delivered to the Commonwealth Section of the Society on 6th December 1966, with Sir Edwin

McCarthy , C.B.E. , in the Chair

the chairman : In introducing Sir Alexander to you it is appropriate to mention that his father, Sir John Downer, was the Premier of his State and one of a very distinguished band of Australians who founded the Australian Federation as we know it to-day. After his school years in Australia, Sir Alexander came to Oxford, where he graduated in politics, philosophy and history, and also studied economics and political science. Subsequently, he was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple. On his return to Australia he followed what I think can be broadly described as rural pursuits. After war service (for some years he was a prisoner-of-war) he entered the Australian Federal Parliament. During his fifteen years as a Member, during which he was for about six in the Government as Minister for Immigration, he not only addressed himself to the problems which he was required to deal with as Minister, but gave a lot of thought and attention to Australia's activities generally and particularly to her position in international affairs. His experience as a parliamentarian, his devotion to Australia's interests, his knowledge of Australian history and his intensive five or six years as Minister for Immigration all make him very well fitted indeed to talk to you on this subject.

The following lecture was then delivered.

THE LECTURE

I appreciate the honour of being asked to deliver this lecture. Sir Thomas Holland, who died in 1947, had a long association with this Society, but highly as you revere him he will probably be better remembered for his public service both at home and abroad. He was a notable geologist, an accomplished administrator, and an academic of considerable stature. As a comparatively young man he became Director -General of the Geological Survey of India, and later a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council. Returning to England in 1922 he was appointed Rector of the Imperial College of Science and Technology; seven years later he went to Edinburgh as Principal and Vice-President of Edinburgh University, and there he remained until two years before his death. As an Australian whose public life has been served principally in my own country but more recently in Britain, and as one who ever since my youth has been dedicated to the causes of the British

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FEBRUARY 1 967 IMMIGRATION AND AUSTRALIA'S NATIONAL CHARACTER

Commonwealth, I wish to pay my own tribute to the work of this distinguished Englishman.

The subject you have asked me to speak on this evening is of an amplitude that would require a book to do it justice. All that I can attempt is to give a bare historical outline, emphasizing certain features which seem to me prominent in the growth of Australia's personality and the character of her people. Then I will try to indicate some other factors, and directions in which we may be going.

Australia's story until not so long ago was one of a people, British in the main, who adapted themselves quickly to a continent of sharply contrasting climates, strange and difficult conditions of living, remote in space from the Old World. In meeting the challenges of their habitat they developed initiatives, resourcefulness, a directness of manner, a tendency to look at problems in the same clear light as their harsh, uncompromising summer sunshine, and without the shadows and nuances of the land whence they came. The nature of their environment, and the tasks confronting them, soon freed them from some of the stiffer conventions of Georgian and Victorian England.

You all know the background to Australia's foundation, but may I remind you of one or two features which made it an unusual and creditable episode in the history of British colonial expansion. It was a planned settlement following on the loss of the American Colonies. The first idea was to establish in New South Wales an overflow from English prisons. But Captain Phillip, the first Governor, was a man of humanity and imagination; and he conceived the infant settlement of Sydney not simply as an effluent from England but as the beginning of a great enterprise in colonization. In my youthful days in England in the 1930s it was often said, sometimes facetiously, sometimes more seriously, that Australians were descended from convicts. This never seemed a profitable argument, because in fact we only received the overflow from British gaols - the majority of criminals, and their descendants, remained at home. You could argue truthfully, if you wanted to be silly, that more people to-day in Britain have criminal ancestors than their kinsfolk in Australia!

Phillip sailed from Portsmouth on 13th May 1787 in command of a fleet carrying 1,487 people, of whom 759 were convicts, and he hoisted the Union Jack in Port Jackson, and proclaimed the Colony, on 26th January 17 88. He is an important figure in the story of both our countries, and as time proceeds I believe his stature will grow. Apart from his fine personal qualities, there is an interesting aspect of

Phillip which is not widely recognized. Wrapped up in his genealogy was a portent of the Australia he was destined to found: for whilst his Mother was English, his Father was a German, from Frankfurt, who in his youth had settled in London. Thus right from the start the signpost pointed to the creation of an Anglo -European community.

The settlement, and initial years, not only of Sydney but later of the other Australian Colonies, were free from some of the major complexities that the British encountered elsewhere. For one thing, there were no other nationalities to contend with as in Canada with the French, or even in New Zealand where the indigenous Maori population was, in proportion to the size of the territory, larger, more

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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS FEBRUARY 1 967

established, more developed, and more intelligent than the Australian aborigines. It has been estimated that at the end of the eighteenth century the aboriginal population amounted to 300,000, but in view of the difficulties of making such a computation this figure should be accepted with reserve. In any case, for a country of continental size the natives were small in numbers, widely scattered, unorganized, and primitive in the extreme. They presented few problems in the early colonial period. Despite occasional skirmishes, and some quite unnecessary and shocking cruelties, as happened in Tasmania, it is true to say, in general terms, that Australia was a peaceful settlement. This was not without some effect on Australian attitudes as the nineteenth century progressed.

After Sydney, other parts of the continent were occupied in fairly quick succession. The year 1803 saw the establishment of Hobart in what was then called Van Diemen's Land. The Swan River Colony, centred on Perth, followed in 1829: these settlers came direct from England. In 1834 Melbourne was founded from Tasmania. Two years later the province of South Australia was proclaimed, an interesting experiment in free colonial enterprise according to a scheme formulated by that colourful English philosophical radical, Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Some- what later, in 1859, ¡he settlement of Brisbane marked the beginnings of that vast and rich area known as Queensland.

Nevertheless, although the principal political demarcations of Australia (with the exception of Queensland) were made, for the most part, within fifty years of Phillip's arrival, the population of the Colonies rose slowly. By 1840 they totalled little over 190,000. The first dramatic spurt came in the 1850s with the discovery of gold in Victoria. Immigrants poured in from Britain, Ireland, even the United States, with a noticeable, though by no means a preponderating, flow from Ireland. I will return to the Irish immigration a little later, because its effect on the Australian character, our national policies, our public and private attitudes, has been marked.

The Gold Rush subsided by the early '60s, but by then Australia's population had jumped to 1 J million. For the next three decades immigration proceeded at a steady, undramatic, pace from various parts of the British Isles. It was this middle portion of the century that saw the arrival of many Scots. As one who is destitute of Scotch blood it is becoming to express my reverence for these remarkable people who have contributed so richly to Australia's development. They settled ubiquitously, but in Melbourne they left their deepest impress. There they laid the foundations of what has become the commercial centre of my country, a city to-day of over two million people, and which one day may become our largest State capital.

Let me, however, go back a little. Before the Gold Rush came another valuable strand of population from across the North Sea. These were Germans, of good farming stock, many of them born in Silesia, who on account of religious disagree- ments transported themselves principally to South Australia between 1838 and the 1850s. They exploited virgin lands; they founded our wine industry. With them they brought the Lutheran religion, their national customs, their picturesque architecture, and of course their language. Of their quality as pioneers there could

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be no criticism. They ranked with the best. Their defect - and this is under- standable - was a tendency to keep to themselves, inter-marry, and for long years maintain a somewhat reserved attitude towards their British compatriots. My father for many years represented in the South Australian Parliament, and after Federation in the National Parliament, many of these German settlers and their offspring. In his early days, as a young man, he would have to take an interpreter with him when visiting those portions of his constituency. And this was as late as the 1870s and '80s. Years afterwards it was my good fortune to represent at Canberra the descendants of these excellent citizens. By 1949, when I first became their Federal Member, the subsequent generations had inevitably merged to some degree with those of British origin. Yet even to-day you will sometimes hear, in rural areas, fourth generation German -Australians speaking English with a pronounced German accent. I do not imply any criticism in saying this : on the contrary, these early Germans brought a contrast, a welcome variety into the Australian scene. They were the forerunners of the post-war German immigration which began in 1947, and which has given us well over 107,000 German settlers in the last nineteen years.

Now I must return for a moment to the Irish, and the way they have stamped part of their image on the Australian character. In the last forty years of the nineteenth century they flowed steadily to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Strangely, comparatively few were attracted by Adelaide or Perth, a factor which explains to-day the low ratio of the Roman Catholic population to Anglican and Protestant denominations in those capitals as compared with eastern Australia. The Irish took with them, holus bolus> all their virtues and their faults. They imported easy manners, personal charm, affability, a robust attitude to life, an innate friendliness and kindness, much of which has become incorporated in the Australian personality. But they also carried with them - as unfortunately have some Yugo-Slavs and a proportion of Greeks in recent years - all their prejudices. It was the Irish more than any other sector of the Australian communities who voiced anti-British sentiments in the '80s and '90s. It was the Irish who became the chief radicals in each of the colonies. It was the Irish who flocked into politics and permeated the Labour Party in the early years of its growth, and who even now, in their descendants, form a noteworthy proportion of its membership in national and state parliaments. The two most distinguished Labour Prime Ministers of Australia were neither Watson (the Party's first) nor the Scotsman Fisher, but Curtin and Chifley, whose very names proclaim their Irish antecedents. Scullin, a lesser man, was thwarted by the economic depression and the troubles of the

I93os- The Irish immigrants quickly became influential in other facets of national life.

In the law, and literature, they produced distinguished figures. But outside national and state politics it was in religion that they emerged as one of the most powerful forces in the land. They brought with them a Catholicism sometimes broad and humane, at other times militant to an extent that aroused antagonisms and

apprehensions from the Protestant majority. Almost always the Roman Church in Australia has been ably led. But there have been periods, notably during and after

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the First World War, when, under the guidance of Dr. Mannix, the Archbishop of Melbourne, the Church seemed even to some of its adherents, and certainly to those outside it, to have become too deeply embedded in political controversies. In saying these things I hope I am not causing offence to any of my Catholic friends, nor am I speaking of to-day but of the past. All I am trying to do is to make an objective assessment of an influence in the Australian character which is too important to ignore.

One of the mountain peaks in Australia's story for all time was the attainment of Federation in 1901. Thenceforth the six colonies became States in a national unity directed by a national Parliament, a High Court, and a Governor -General representing the Sovereign. The colonies ceded some of their powers to the central government, but - unlike the Canadian provinces - retained the residue of authority in themselves. How in sixty-five years, despite this limitation, the national Parliament has attracted more and more authority at the expense of the States is a fascinating excursus beyond the ambit of my subject; but one of the powers entrusted to The Commonwealth, as the Australian nation is called, was Immigration and Emigration. (Section 51, placitum 27.)

Looking back, it is interesting to recall that in 1901 the population of the new nation was only slightly over 3,800,000. Not much to boast about, you may say, in 113 years since 1788, after a century and more of long stretches of peace. Immigra- tion policy featured largely in the debates of the first Commonwealth Parliament, and it was then that our restricted immigration policy - often incorrectly designated 'White Australia' - was proclaimed. These were also the years when the Govern- ment borrowed an idea of Joseph Chamberlain's, the Dictation Test, as an expedient to refuse entry to persons who were regarded as unsuitable for settlement in the Australian community. An ingenious device, it undoubtedly served its purpose, but it was hard to defend as an honest instrument of policy; it fell to my lot, during my first year as Minister of Immigration in 1958, when introducing a reconstructed Migration Bill, to announce, on behalf of the Government, its abolition.

At this point perhaps I should say something about the principles of our immigration policy. Australians are not nowadays colour-conscious; they are certainly not racialists. In fact, they have shown a better capacity to mix easily with coloured peoples than any other European nation. Yet from the beginning of the century, and indeed in most of the colonies in the nineteenth century, the desire has been strong to develop the country with people drawn from British and European stock. This policy has been accepted by all political parties. It has never been a subject of contention either in Parliament or on the hustings. Where controversies have arisen is over its application to individual cases, particularly as regards entry and deportation. Outside politics, especially since the last war, criticism has been more vocal, but this has come not from the mass of public opinion but rather from academics and Churchmen and a few prominent individuals.

In any event, it is a mistake to consider immigration policy as static. Great discretion, as well as tremendous powers, are vested in the Minister of the day. For the last sixteen years successive Ministers have liberalized the policy in the

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direction of concessions towards non -European entry and residence, and to-day there are defined categories under which non -Europeans may live in Australia and, if they so wish, become naturalized. I have long felt myself that as our population increased, as our people became better acquainted with the nations of Asia, so Australia could afford to relax her restrictive policy - not to the extent of changing its Anglo -European basis, but to a point where an annual influx of non-Europeans would be accepted as a matter of course. But we shall do best in this respect if we make haste slowly. No country in the world has yet solved the problem of multi- racial harmony within its frontiers, and Australia, in the coming years, may be no more successful than others. Even so, we can afford to be more generous. At the beginning of the century Asians amounted to approximately 1.25 per cent of our total population; to-day this percentage is merely 0.3.

Immigration made a continuous, but unspectacular, contribution to Australian development for the first two decades of this century. In 19 14 the population had not quite reached the five million mark; by 1921 it was only million. Between then and the onset of the world-wide economic depression in 1929 the Bruce government pursued an active immigration programme concentrating on people from the United Kingdom. This evoked a sympathetic response from the Baldwin ministry, particularly from that lovable British Commonwealth statesman, Leopold Amery, who was Dominions Secretary at the time. All this, unhappily, was brought to a grinding halt by the Great Depression. Throughout the '30s unemployment was rife everywhere, and the flow of settlers to Australia practically dried up. On that fateful day, 3rd September 1939, when within an hour of Britain declaring war on Germany, Australia, as in every previous crisis, announced that she stood by Britain's side, our population was only seven million.

It is during the last twenty years that Australia has galloped away. Immediately after the Second World War, Mr. Chifley's government set up for the first time a

separate Ministry of Immigration, and the Prime Minister appointed his energetic, imaginative, ambitious Cabinet colleague Arthur Calwell to direct it. Mr. Calwell has for some years now been Leader of the Labour Opposition in the Australian Parliament, but it is his work as Minister for Immigration between 1945 and 1949 which will give him a permanent and honoured place in my country's history. He had the good sense to appoint as Permanent Head of this new Department one of Australia's most capable civil servants, now Sir Tasman Heyes. Calwell immediately seized the opportunity of bringing European displaced persons - as they were called - to Australia. Altogether 270,000 people in this category have come, and have been successfully absorbed in their respective localities. Simultaneously, a programme of financially assisted immigration was conceived on conditions more

generous than previously offered by any other country. As before, primary emphasis was placed on settlers from Great Britain, on kith and kin - to use a

phrase unfashionable in some quarters to-day. But along with this an adventure in Europe began. Migration offices were opened in Germany in 1947» in Italy and the Netherlands in 1948. In concert with the International Refugee Organization, supported by large American subventions, a remarkable flow of Italians, Dutch and Germans commenced. Then, as time progressed, and after Mr. Chifley's

I95



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS FEBRUARY 1 967 administration in 1949 gave way to Mr. Menzies, and Mr. Calwell in turn to Mr. Holt as Migration Minister, the sources of European recruitment widened. Missions were opened in Athens in 1952, in Vienna and Copenhagen in 1955, and in Geneva in 1957. An office was established in Hong Kong to assist with the transit of White Russian refugees from China. The International Refugee Organization was succeeded by a new and important body called the Inter- Governmental Committee for European Migration, which still functions.

It was about this time that Australia began to give sanctuary to large numbers of refugees from Yugoslavia who had escaped to Italy. In my own period as Minister, which began early in 1958, I arranged for immigration centres to be established in Malta and Belgium in 1961, Paris, Madrid and Stockholm in 1962. During this period we decentralized our activities in the United Kingdom by opening offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester and Birmingham. From Cairo we attracted Greeks who wished to leave Egypt after the Nasser revolution. More recently, my successor Mr. Opperman has spread the net even wider in Belgrade and Beirut.

What are the fruits of twenty years nation -building through the biggest planned immigration programme Australia has yet undertaken? When the Second War ended, Australia's population was 7,400,000. To-day it is over 11 J million, an increase of 55.4 per cent. In the period 1946-66 more than 2,' million people have come from abroad, at an annual rate which one year reached as high as 180,000. I hope you will not think me too statistical if I give you, in round numbers, the principal countries of origin. From Britain and Northern Ireland we have attracted i ' million; from Holland nearly 142,000; from Germany 107,000. Denmark, Norway and Sweden together have sent us nearly 12,000; figures from other Scandinavian States are higher. For example, we have received 20,000 Latvians, over 7,000 Finns and 6,300 Estonians. More than 83,000 Poles have arrived, many of them being refugees. From Central Europe we have welcomed 25,000 Austrians, 60,000 Yugoslavs, more than 12,000 Czechs and nearly 29,000 Hungarians. The Swiss are not usually thought as of an emigrating people, yet 6¿ thousand have ventured to Australia. Even more stay-at-home are the French, but 9,500 have come to us, mainly from Metropolitan France. Belgian and Spanish numbers, so far, are small in proportion to their populations: little more than 3,000 Belgians and fewer than 13,000 Spaniards - the latter due to difficulties with General Franco which we did not foresee. But apart from Spain, the Mediterranean countries have given generously of their people: 300,000 Italians, 152,000 Greeks, 65,000 Maltese, have settled in Australia in the last eighteen years. From the other side of the world we have received over 40,000 United States citizens, and this is noteworthy remembering that America itself is still a country of immigration with magnetic enticements to many Europeans and Englishmen.

In the general picture, this momentum has not slowed down. Far from it. British immigration at present is running at a record height. Both last year, and this year, the totals look like being around the 85,000 mark. It is true that economic conditions on the Continent have lessened the urge of Europeans to go abroad. Australia will be lucky to get 3,000 Dutch this year, and the same number of

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Germans. The Italian impetus has declined compared with three or four years ago, but even so between 10,000 and 12,000 Italians are expected in 1966. Greek arrivals should exceed this figure. Elsewhere, the tide may rise with the Australian Govern- ment's recently announced scheme of extra financial assistance. Despite some shadows, the general prospect looks bright: a grand total of 148,000 settlers is anticipated for this year. By any standard of computation this is a large intake.

Now it will be clear to you already that so large an influx within historically so short a time must be affecting the Australian outlook as compared with 1945. European immigration has brought a multitude of assets, and scarcely a single disadvantage worthy of the name. People from the Continent have broadened our horizons in a way that our British kinsfolk, on account of their similarity to our- selves, and highly as we value them, never could do. They have made Australians more enlightened, more understanding of foreigners. They have opened the eyes of Australians who have never had the opportunities of travel to the customs, languages, capacities, and culture, of other nations. They have induced a wider tolerance in the Australian mind, something in the past which was noticeably lacking in our mental composition.

A visitor to Australia to-day, after an absence of twenty years, would rub his eyes in astonishment at the change of scene. In so many aspects of daily life their influence is apparent. May I give you one or two examples.

To many Australians, as well as to practically all visitors, Australian licensing laws until recently were a bad and irritating joke. European eating and drinking habits have convinced my countrymen, in the way that Australians themselves were unable to do, that drinking should not be catalogued amongst the categories of sin, and that it is unreasonable to forbid people to drink wines and spirits in

public eating places after 6 o'clock in the evening. My own State of South Australia, alas !, is still the remaining citadel of restriction in this respect, but there are signs that even here the walls of Jericho will shortly fall - and they will fall to the sound of trumpets which could be labelled 'Made in Europe'. For some years now, the

great cities of Sydney and Melbourne, and the smaller but equally attractive cities of Adelaide and Perth, to say nothing of the nation's beautiful capital Canberra, have had the benefit of hotels and restaurants equal to some of the best in London and on the Continent. These elevated standards have radiated to provincial and even quite small country towns. As often as not you will find the management is

European, and almost always a high European component amongst the staff. The effects of European immigration on the arts and sport quickly became

manifest. Some of Australia's leading painters to-day originated in Europe. The same applies to the theatre, to music, to architecture, and there are stirrings in the field of literature. Soccer has become a popular game; migrants are now star

players in Australian Rules football. And this, to a southerner, is saying a lot! As for the national economy, it could never have flourished so startlingly without

our migrant workers. The immigration programme was always designed to relate the flow of settlers to employment opportunities. On the whole, this has proved remarkably successful. Australia to-day has one of the lowest unemployment percentages in the world, and so she is able to maintain an immigration rate of

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high proportions. The amazing expansion of the manufacturing industries, the development of mineral resources in north-western Australia and northern Queens- land, the construction of Australia's greatest hydro -electric and water conservation scheme in the Snowy Mountains - none of these things could have occurred so quickly had it not been for the advent of so many British and European workers. As you would expect, having gained more than one million operatives since the War, the newcomers are altering the composition of Australia's trade unions. It is estimated that between 70 and 80 per cent of them have become members. In rather a different context, it is interesting to observe that in the 1961-65 period, of the 71,600 permanent appointments to the Commonwealth Public Service, 11,900, or just under 17 per cent, were persons born outside Australia.

I do not suppose that the character of any nation is ever static. For the last five centuries British and European peoples have been subject to changes in modes of living, taste and temperament more marked than in the five preceding centuries. But surely the twentieth century has already seen more revolutionary alterations in people's minds than any previous comparable period of time. Even if you doubt this as a general proposition, I should like to suggest that it is true of Australia. Yet it seems to me that the Australian character and outlook nowadays are being moulded more by the course of world events than by the continuous swelling of our national reservoir by immigration.

In my own adult lifetime, that is to say in the last thirty-five years, I have seen great alterations in our way of looking at things. A million or so European settlers are only one of several causes of this transformation. More contributory have been the effects of the two world wars on the balance of power; the virtual dissolution of the British Empire - lamentable as this is to many of us ; the supersession of Britain by the United States as the strongest, richest, most influential nation. Equally significant has been the triumph of nationalism in Asia, made possible, paradoxically, by Japan's bid for Asian and Pacific supremacy in 1941. Although defeated in battle she succeeded in one of her oft -repeated aims of ridding the countries of Asia of their European masters. And this was accomplished incredibly quickly in terms of history. Latterly, as we all know to our discomfiture, Asia has not merely been nationalistic but, in the case of China, and Indonesia, assertive and belligerent.

Now these events have affected the Australian outlook profoundly. It is no longer the province of small groups of far-sighted politicians or a coterie of academics, as in the 1930s, to tell Australians that their relationship with Asia is their primary responsibility in external affairs. To-day most people realize this themselves. They also discovered, when Japan launched the Pacific War, that they could no longer look to Britain for immediate, effective, help when the Mother Country herself was so heroically engaged in a struggle for her very existence. Perforce their government turned to America; and it was American naval and air power, more than any other circumstance, which preserved Australia from invasion by Japan after the fall of Singapore, and the collapse of Java, in 1942.

Such a terrible succession of events is bound to leave a marked impression on

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the character of any people who previously had looked on the dramas and tragedies of international affairs much as spectators view a play from the dress-circle of a theatre. It is true that in the First World War Australia gave freely in proportion to her population and resources; but her territorial security was not threatened, because all her northern and north-western neighbours were either British or European colonies, China was neutral, Japan was an ally. Moreover, Britain emerged from the carnage still a predominant world power. The scene after 1945 was sadly changed, and the consequences of the 1939-45 War have affected public opinion as much as the war itself. Perhaps they can be summarized this way.

In the future, Australia knows she must show more independence of spirit and policies. She must become more self-reliant. She must secure her alliance with the United States. She must allocate more of her resources to defence as well as to assist under -developed countries. She knows she must be prepared to contribute some of her manpower, which she can ill-afford to lose, to fighting in the defence of areas vital to her security. Whilst not physically an Asian country, and essentially a European power in race and culture, Australia appreciates that one of the prime tasks of her foreign policy is to establish good relationships with her northern neighbours, and without forfeiting her ideals, attempt to live harmoniously with them. During the 1950s, and also in this decade, she has been very active in making Asian contacts: through diplomatic representation, through trade; and without claiming too much, she has been forthcoming in economic aid to her neighbours, and not-so-near nations, in their difficulties. But in parenthesis, may I remind you that economic aid falls harder on a partly developed country such as my own, whose population of merely 11 ' million lives in an area the size of Europe (if you exclude Russia) than on the rich, demographically concentrated, highly -developed nations of the northern hemisphere.

These attitudes of mind have been accelerated by portents of Britain's changing concept of her own future rôle. For the last six years Australians have become steadily aware of the growing momentum of public opinion in this country towards Europe. Such a contentious and fascinating policy is not really germane to my subject: I do not propose to do more than state it as a matter which has caused a

reappraisal amongst all classes of Australians of their relationship with Britain. The waning belief in the Commonwealth openly expressed on all sides in London

to-day; the desire of many to become part of an economically, and politically, integrated Europe ; the abandonment of Commonwealth preferences and denial of free entry of Australian imports here which would follow - this remarkable transformation of traditional views in what for most of us is still the Mother Country, is

emphasizing again to Australians that the old ties are weakening, and that the British association may be a factor which henceforth could count for less than in the

past. If, on top of these possibilities, those who advocate a sharp contraction of British defence responsibilities carry the day, then our British connections would recede to ancestry, a residue of sentiment, diminishing trade, and the many British institutions and practices that have almost automatically become part of the Australian way of life.

For myself, I hope devoutly that the picture will not fade thus. Nevertheless,

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honesty compels one to regard such conjectures as real possibilities. I have stated them not in any desire to excite controversy but rather to illustrate my thesis that at this point of time, although immigration is making a recognizable, and influential, contribution to the evolving Australian image, the character and outlook of my countrymen is being affected more by the revolutionary years we live in than by the tide of new settlers we seek to attract.

Yet come what may, speaking as one whose forebears had the initiative and courage to set out from the south of England nearly 130 years ago to the infant colony of South Australia, there are still powerful forces moving for a continued close association between our two countries. Over 60 per cent of the annual migrant flow comes from Britain. Obviously this means that Australia every year receives a sizeable injection of the contemporary British point of view. European migration has diluted the British component only to a relatively slight extent : 90 per cent of Australia's population is still of British origin. Financially, there are deep and abiding ties with the City of London. To take the post-war period alone, over £1,000 million sterling has been invested by Britain in Australia. And I have no doubt at all that this will continue, at least as soon as the Chancellor of the Exchequer feels he is able to abandon present restraints. Britain and Australia are major trading partners: we are your second best customer in the world; you are our best - though Japan is now drawing equal. Sentimentally - and I know that to-day sentiment is derided but, make no mistake, it is a formidable factor in politics - there are still unfathomable depths of feeling in the hearts of large numbers of Australians towards Britain. And despite occasional rumblings of the avant-garde , no country has shown itself more loyal to the Sovereign.

Any relationship, of course, must be a two-way one to survive. If the will persists in Britain to maintain close ties with Australia, and this will is expressed in overt and imaginative deeds, then Australians will respond, and no force or circumstance on earth will shatter our unity.

DISCUSSION

Miss barbara Harrison : Are Asiatics encouraged to come into Australia, or are they still debarred?

THE LECTURER : We are not encouraging them, because we make no pretence at all about the basis of our policies ; but we are making it easier for certain categories to come, and only a few months ago we quite sharply reduced the period in which they can qualify to become naturalized, once they have gained lawful admission to Australia. In that respect we now place Asians on exactly the same basis as European settlers. But if you ask whether we are contemplating the establishment of migration missions to Delhi or to Tokio or Jakarta - no, that is not the thinking of the Australian Government at all.

sir gilbert RENNiE, G.B.E., K.C.M.G., M.c. (Chairman, Commonwealth Section Committee): What are the chief articles of trade between Australia and Japan, each way?

the lecturer: Japan has become the principal buyer of Australian wool, and buys some of the foodstuffs of our smaller primary industries. She is starting to buy some of our fruits, for example.

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To-day Japan buys more wool from Australia than does Britain. We have a very favourable balance of trade with her. Until quite recently it was so lopsided that it was almost untenable, and I am surprised that the Japanese tolerated it for so long. But there have been suggestions, and quite positive prods, from Tokio that Australia should now do something to redress this, and no reasonable man can oppose it. So we, for our part, have been tending to import Japanese manufactures, especially Japanese toys, in a much greater volume than before, and we have found - as the rest of the world has - that in the last ten or fifteen years the general quality of Japanese products has vastly improved.

So the picture is one of a favourable trade balance, and the Japanese, I am sorry to say, are on the point of displacing Great Britain as our biggest export market.

MR. m. BRYN davies : Has Australia explored the possibility of exporting more to China than wheat, especially in view - as Sir Alexander so aptly described it - of Australia's desire to live in harmony with her Asian neighbours?

the lecturer : We are indeed exporting quite large quantities of wheat to China, and it may well be that a sizeable volume of trade will develop between Australia and China. But this, as you can see at a glance, is not free from difficulty, because at the moment we have no diplomatic representation in Peking, and until we do then I think it is hard to envisage a really large multi-lateral trade between my country and the Chinese.

MR. vernon cole: What proportion of the world's wool is produced in Australia?

the lecturer : I cannot give you the exact percentage off the cuff, but I think it is something like 20 to 30 per cent.

MR. j. v. coen, в. A., LL.B. (Sydney) : How does the investment of money from London in Australia compare with investment by the rest of the world?

the lecturer: The volume of British investments is certainly greater than that from any other country. As I said, in the last twenty years it amounts to about £1,000 million sterling. I think the comparable United States figures is between ¿500 million and £600 million sterling; from other parts of the world it is slight, as compared with Britain or America. We are hoping, as time goes on, to induce more European investment, and unless I am much mistaken this will come about, because more people are realizing that Australia is a good country, a growing power in the world, a safe place for investment. Whether you like its party politics or not, it has a very stable and, on the whole, middle-of-the-way form of government, whether the Right or the Left is in power.

miss Wendy SHAW : Is it as easy for an African or a West Indian to gain admission to Australia as it is for an Asian?

the lecturer: I used the phrase non-European. The general immigration policy applies to all non-Europeans, but in my discourse I referred from time to time to Asians and to Asia because the countries of Asia are more or less contiguous to us, and when you talk to Australians about non-Europeans they quite naturally think of those people to the north of them with whom they are trying to cultivate good relations.

MISS FRANCES BLACKETT : Does Sir Alexander think that the United Kingdom's Commonwealth immigration laws are doing much psychological harm to her relations with Australia?

the lecturer: The subject is under discussion at the moment, and is rather a delicate one. It has been exciting my own interest and activity in high places. When

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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS FEBRUARY 1 967 the Commonwealth Immigration Act was passed in 1 962 we understood very well the reasons for it, but I think that quite a number of our people have been discomfited, and hurt, by the way in which that Act is being applied here. It is not so much the principle, nor the policy it represents, as the manner of its application which has caused irritation in the last year or so. These are human factors, and I would hope that with a bit of common sense, more tact, the exercise of a little discretion, some of these frictions can be avoided.

MR. p. A. kýle, B.A. : Mr. MacGregor, in his new book on Australia, points out an anomaly in Australian immigration laws - that Papuans, who are definitely in The Commonwealth, are not allowed into Australia on account of their colour. Could Sir Alexander confirm whether this is true? And, if so, why?

the lecturer: It is true, and we have never made any bones about it. The indigenous population of New Guinea is about two million, and if you were going to allow New Guineane free access and free settlement, without restraint, in Australia it would just make a nonsense of the whole basis of our Anglo-European population policy - which, as I tried to show, has been the policy of the country not only in the national period but since the colonial period.

But it would be a great mistake to conclude that this has become a matter of agitation in New Guinea, or that there is great feeling about it there. There are always individual cases, but by and large, so far as I am aware, there has certainly been no demand from the people of New Guinea that this policy should be radically altered or that they should have exactly the same rights as the Australian population living on the Australian mainland.

sir JOHN greaves, c.M.G. : When I first went to Australia in 1948 I was fascinated by a saying, 'Near enough is good enough'. Would Sir Alexander agree that the influx of immigration, not only British but also European, has produced great improvements in Australian manufacturing standards?

the lecturer: Yes, that is true, but at the same time I think the Australians themselves have realized that the world is no longer a warm, comfortable, feather- bedded place - that they live in an increasingly competitive age and have got to improve their own standards, and stand much more by their own exertions not only in terms of security but in terms of trade. The Europeans undoubtedly have brought to us fine skills and so have British workers.

the chairman : I think we will all agree that not only did Sir Alexander give us very clearly the facts of immigration to Australia, but also by his broad references to Australian history conveyed to us the way in which the migration policies of different governments fitted into and influenced its economic and cultural progress. Sometimes in the statements made on migration hard facts only are put forward: I believe, however, there is a philosophical element - a set of principles that enter into migration policies that are worked out over a long period of years. I myself some years ago found myself talking on these lines to Dutchmen who were inclined to question the number and type of people we were taking from their country. I was very interested therefore in noting how Sir Alexander, in his approach to his subject, drew on his wide experience and his broad grasp of Australia's affairs. May I ask that you convey by acclamation your thanks to him for his admirable discourse.

The vote of thanks to the Lecturer was carried with acclamation and , another having been accorded to the Chairman upon the proposal of Sir Gilbert Rennie , the meeting ended.

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the influence of immigration on australia's national character

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