we are not prepared to advance to all our franchises, to all our privileges of citizens, and all our social rights, including the rights of marriage'; and there can be no question that in using these last words he laid his finger on the principal seat of the disease. Western institutions, especially that of Parliamentary representation, are absolutely foreign to Asiatics, and marriage-in the true senseis equally impossible. The issue of such unions are hybrids, and the Spanish-American republics and certain parts of Australia afford melancholy proof that hybrids reproduce the vices of both parents and the virtues of neither. Coloured aliens rarely bring their women with them, but consorting with white females beget the most undesirable class a country can have. From Thursday Island to Townsville, there is not a port in which cannot be found people in whose veins runs a mixture of Caucasian, Hindoo, Chinese, Japanese, Javanese, Kanaka, and Malayan blood. Their immediate forefathers were men each of a different race; their mothers women of cloudy descent; themselves degenerates in intellect and morals, and their presence on Australian soil a source of constant irritation to the higher race. Nor is this all. Half-bred Chinese, the offspring of a Chinese father and a British mother, are to be met with throughout the length and breadth of Australia, and, though they are in general people of some intelligence, they are either contemptuously ignored by the white population, or treated with open contumely. From inclination or stress of circumstances, they almost invariably live apart from the Europeans in their own quarter, which, in the towns is usually called 'Chinatown' and on the goldfields 'the Chinese Camp.' In Sydney whole streets have had to be abandoned to the Chinese and the half-breeds, or 'halfcastes' as the latter are usually styled by the populace, and the slums of Little Bourke Street and other parts of Melbourne have an evil reputation only rivalled by the Chinatown of San Francisco, where 50,000 yellow men seethe in a hotbed of vice and squalor. It was the knowledge of these facts, and that the efforts of the individual States to shut out undesirable immigrants had proved ineffective owing to lack of unity in action, that gave such a powerful impetus to Federation and caused a universal determination to preserve the purity and maintain the predominance of the white races in Australia.

In thus seeking to establish what may be called the Monroe doctrine of the Commonwealth, Australia is not, either in letter or spirit, exceeding her international rights or the scope of the Constitution recently conferred upon her by the Imperial Parliament. Like any other State, she has the inherent power, as a precautionary measure against social evils, of excluding convicts, paupers, and other undesirable immigrants; provided, of course, that such a power is uot exercised beyond the requirements of vital necessity. The

Constitution expressly gave the Federated States the right to legislate in regard to the people of any race-other than the aboriginal race in any State-for whom it might be deemed necessary to make special laws. In this respect, therefore, the new nation is free to work out her own salvation, largely in her own way. But, although left thus unfettered, Australia has been careful not to add to the already vast responsibilities of the unweary Titan. She is fully aware of the difficult and delicate nature of legislation which affects millions of dark-skinned races, some of whom are the subjects and others the allies of Great Britain, and fortunately she was aided by the advice of Mr. Chamberlain, than whom there never was a Minister in charge of the Colonial Office more keenly alive to the perplexities which surround colonial statesmen, or one more genuinely sympathetic with the aspirations of Greater Britain. Thanks partly to the guidance of that 'lidless watcher of the commonweal,' and partly to the saving common-sense which usually prevails in a British Legislature, the daughter-State was enabled to steer a middle course. After careful deliberation and animated debate the Federal Parliament, in accordance with Mr. Chamberlain's suggestion, passed the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, which after being two years in operation has been found to work satisfactorily. Instead of absolutely excluding aliens on the ground of race or colour, an educational test-the cloak under which modern laws regulating the admission of aliens are commonly hidden 2—was adopted as a means of disqualification. It may be observed in passing that a similar provision had previously existed in the immigration laws of Natal, New South Wales, Tasmania, Western Australia, and other parts of the British dominions beyond the seas, and that Alien Restriction Acts of various kinds are to be found in the Imperial statute-book since the reign of Richard the Second down to comparatively modern times. By these means Australia attained the end she had in view without giving offence to other nations. So smoothly, indeed, has the Commonwealth legislation worked that on the 30th of October last, when the Prime Minister, the Hon. Alfred Deakin, reviewed the work of the session which had then just closed and outlined the future policy of the Federal Government, he was able to show that the alien population of the continent was being steadily reduced. During the first nine months of 1903 upwards of 31,000 persons entered Australia from oversea, and of these 28,000 were Europeans. Of the remainder, many coloured persons came in under engagement on pearling vessels, but under such conditions that, practically speaking, they never really entered the country. Out of 2571 others who endeavoured to enter Australia, only ten were found to possess the necessary educational qualification. In practice, however, the test is not very much applied, for the obvious reason ? Professor Harrison Moore, The Commonwealth of Australia, p. 144.

that shipowners, knowing they would have to re-convey undesirable immigrants at their own cost, usually stop them at the port of intended shipment. By these means,' Mr. Deakin added, it is to be hoped that we shall soon be able to count on our fingers the coloured aliens in this country, if the test is properly applied.' The Prime Minister, moreover, emphatically declared that, notwithstanding all representations to the contrary, not a single European had been excluded from Australian soil through the instrumentality of the immigration laws. The fact remains-and cannot be denied, that although the contract labour clause is in existence, there is no human being on this planet who has been shut out of Australia in consequence.'

But although much has been accomplished, much abides. A humane statute has purged the general weal, and Australia for the time being reposes from the fear of a coloured invasion, but she has yet to set her house in order. The racial taint in her blood has to be eradicated, and there is at least one stain on the escutcheon of her fame for which she cannot be held wholly guiltless. The traffic in South Sea Island labour must be stopped. It matters not that the sugar industry is of the greatest importance, not only to Queensland but to the whole continent; that Government legislation, supervision, and regulation have reduced the evils incident to such a traffic almost to vanishing point; that the islanders are so well fed, housed, and paid that they frequently return to renew the term of their original contracts (three years), the moral and social effect of the institution is bad, and Australia has decided that it must and shall be ended. By the Pacific Island Labourers Act, 1901, it is provided that no fresh importation of black labour shall take place after the 31st of March, 1904, and that any islanders found in Australia after the 31st of December, 1906, shall be returned to their own homes. When that day arrives, Australia will have taken a second step towards the realisation of her great national ideal— purity of race and the preservation of Greater Britain for the AngloSaxon stock.

OSWALD P. LAW.
W. T. GILL.

Ballarat, Victoria :

November 1903.

LAST MONTH

I

THE Cabinet, the marvellous Cabinet that has been constructed and reconstructed so many times, until at last it reminds the profane of the Irishman's new boot, has been very much in evidence during the month of December. November Cabinets are almost as marked a feature of that month of gloom as the Lord Mayor's Show, or the sittings of the Law Courts. It is then, according to the unwritten traditions of political life, that statesmen meet in solemn conclave in Downing Street to discuss the bill of fare for the approaching session. But when December comes it is supposed that all this work has been safely accomplished, and that Cabinet Ministers, like other people, are at liberty to enjoy the delights of country house life, or the seductive sunshine of the Riviera. It is not surprising, therefore, that there has been gossip and to spare concerning the Cabinets which were held during the first half of last month. There is no subject on earth, or, at least, none connected with politics, about which men are so fond of indulging in gossip as Cabinet councils, more particularly those which are held unexpectedly and at unusual seasons. It is a mistake to suppose that the solemn secrets of Cabinets are never given up until they have become merely the secrets of the dead. Lord Beaconsfield makes one of the personages of his novels complain that Brooks's had fallen, in his day, upon evil times, because they no longer knew in that classic abode of Whiggery what had happened at a Cabinet council within twenty minutes of its having broken up. Nowadays we have to wait a little longer for the revelation of the truth, though it invariably comes at last. During the past autumn, indeed, it has come only too copiously, chiefly from the inspired lips of members and ex-members of the august body. But even when there are no tales to be told explaining why one right honourable gentleman has thrown up his office and a comfortable salary whilst another has failed to do so, the general public can always learn full particulars of what has taken place at any meeting in Downing Street by turning to the penny-or, if they wish for particularly detailed and precise information, to the halfpenny-newspapers.

It need scarcely be said that the newspapers of a certain class gloried in the accounts they laid before their readers of the subjects which had engaged the attention of Ministers at the recent December Cabinets. They had a wide range of questions from which to choose. First of all there was that of the tariff, to which the gentlemen of the Times, with an insistence that has become a trifle monotonous, give the first place in their daily dissertations. That a Cabinet should meet in these times and not talk about tariffs, retaliation, and dumping is evidently inconceivable to the average journalist. But there are other questions which might well engage the attention of his Majesty's Ministers at this particular moment: army reform, for example; the amendment of the licensing laws, in order to remove the grievances of those long-suffering and greatly misunderstood individuals, the publicans; Irish problems, and the urgent demands of the Nationalist party; and, finally, the difficulties of our foreign policy, which are certainly as numerous to-day as they have ever been. It will be seen that a wide choice was offered to the newspapers which professed to raise the veil of Cabinet secrecy, and one cannot be surprised that they should have revelled in a banquet which contained so many different dishes.

But whatever may be the case as regards Brooks's Club, the newspapers are not to be regarded as trustworthy exponents of Cabinet deliberations. The truth is that the subjects which actually engage the councils of Downing Street are, except in times of acute crisis, almost invariably different from what the public supposes them to be. Mr. Bright was in the habit of laying down a simple rule for the benefit of those who sought to penetrate the mysteries of Ministerial deliberations. 'Whenever a Cabinet is called unexpectedly,' he was wont to say, 'you may be sure that it is to consider some question of foreign policy.' It is affirmed by some of those who are in a position to know, that even Cabinet Ministers themselves have been as much puzzled as to the reason for a sudden summons to Downing Street as the ordinary lounger at the clubs. There is, indeed, one true story about a memorable meeting of a former Cabinet which seems to prove that Ministers, although of the highest degree, do not always know, even after they have dispersed, why they have been called together. On almost the last occasion on which Mr. Gladstone invited his colleagues to meet him at the sacred board, he so far diversified the ordinary procedure as to ask them to dine with him beforehand. It was a novel departure from custom, so far as Mr. Gladstone was concerned, though it was only a revival of a practice which had been common in the days of Lord Palmerston. It happened that this particular meeting of the Cabinet was summoned at a critical moment. Everybody knew that the Prime Minister's resignation was impending. He had talked of it vaguely for months, but to none of his colleagues had he vouch