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"AUSTRALIA IS THE OUTPOST OF WHITE RACE"--VAUGHAN

Ex-Premier of South Australia Supports Premier Hughes in Assertion That Australia Cannot Permit Influx of Asiatic Hordes

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

In a recent interview with a CRIMSON reporter yesterday, Crawford Vaughan, former Premier of South Australia, gave his views on "White Australia," Mr. Vaughan believes with Premier Hughes, who recently startled the world with his speech on "White Australia," that if colored races were allowed in Australia civilization on that island would be obliterated and an inferior race would take the place of the white race.

"White Australian policy," said Mr. Vaughan, "is one designed to keep Australia free from such racial problems as exist in this country and in South Africa. It is a policy directed towards the total exclusion from the Commonwealth of all nations of Asia. But if danger threatened it would equally apply to colored people of other countries. All parties are agreed as to the wisdom of such a policy.

Outpost of the White Race

"Australia lies in a position peculiarly exposed to Asiatic immigration. We are the outpost of the white race in the Orient. We constitute but a white drop in a colored ocean. Around us are the teaming millions of Asiatic people whose population equals half the population of the world. To open our doors freely to the natives of these overcrowded lands would be to invite an exodus from those countries, while civilization would be obliterated and an inferior one would take its place. This we feel would not be helpful to the world.

Australia under British rule has played an important part in pioneering legislation of an experimental character. The Australian Ballot, Women Suffrage, The Torrens System of Land Transfer and a whole volume of laws dealing with industrial relations have been the fruit of our government of the Island Continent. This legislation has been copied far and wide. We could not continue this work if we were overwhelmed by a colored horde from Asia.

"The standard of living of our people differs entirely from that of the native of India, China or even Japan. There is, therefore, a strong economic objection to cheap and inferior labor being admitted. We are solving the problem of developing both our temperate and tropical zones by white labor and are doing it successfully.

Danger In Unpeopled Interior

"At the same time Australia realizes that we can not permanently hold a country as large as the United States with a population not equal to that of New York city. Our greatest danger is our unpeopled interior. We are in this respect in a position practically of that of the United States in the War of the Revolution. The bulk of our population is, as yours was, on the eastern seaboard. Australia therefore, welcomes immigrants wherever they may come from. We hope to fulfill the late Colonel Roosevelt's wise suggestion and 'fill up our waste spaces'.

"We have great sympathy with California in its attitude towards the Asiatic problem. The recent extension of the mandatories through the League of Nations under which Australia is given control of all former German possessions lying south of the equator adds to our responsibility in the greatest of the world's oceans. America's destiny, too, is largely wrapped up in the Pacific and in the Orient. She has her foothold in Hawali, Samoa and the Philippines. She can not lay down her white man's burden in this quarter of the globe without leaving chaos behind and without inviting the occupation of these lands by perhaps another power. These Pacific possessions are the outer defense of the American western coast line and the transmission points of her western civilizing influence in the East. She is working out great problems in her treatment of native races and Australia hopes to follow along the lines America has laid down.

"To sum up: White Australia policy for Australia involves the purity of our race, the maintenance of our standard of living and the continuation of the influence of Western civilization upon the peoples of the Orient. It prevents at the same time the exploitation of helpless natives such as maintained in the old days."

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