[Editor: This article is an extract from the “Stray Notes” section published in The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 30 March 1901.]
A White Australia
The fight is at hand — for a White Australia, the greatest and most pregnant question that has ever been placed before the Australian people.
For Old Age Pensions — a reform which is the crystallisation of all the aims of friendly, assurance, or benefit societies; a reform which is essentially humane, politically just, and socially a necessity and easy of arrangement.
For Adult Suffrage — the nation is its people and every unit in the people a voice in the Government, and as a means of giving effect to the people’s voice and placing the politicians absolutely at their mercy — the Initiative and Referendum.
For Arbitration and Conciliation and the reign of industrial peace and goodwill.
On Saturday a vote for Labour men is a vote for all these and more. A vote against a Labour member or for an opponent, is a vote against all these things, for though many of the old time Tories are advocating one or two or more of them, their past history gives them the lie and stamps their election-time advocacy of these measures as mere flam to gull the voters. If the voters are gulled again, as they have been in the past — well it will be a bad look out.
The white men of Queensland must bear in mind that the battle of Saturday is not confined to Queensland alone, but rages right around and throughout the continent. In N.S. Wales and Victoria and W. Australia and S. Australia and Tasmania, all parties are joined in fighting for what the Labour Party in Queensland is strenuously striving to attain. Party lines in Queensland are arbitrary and we have only the two sections — Labour and the Financiers.
In no other colony is there a party similar to our Ministerial clique. The rankest Tory clique — in fact the only one in Australia is represented by the Banks and their nominees, while all that is Liberal and Progressive is represented by the Labour Party. There are no moderates or half-and-half candidates to vote for, and unless Queensland wishes to be a laughing stock among the men of the South her citizens must vote only for the Labour Representatives and Senators.
Source:
The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 30 March 1901, p. 3
Editor’s notes:
Initiative and Referendum = the ability for voters to bring about, or initiate, a referendum (usually based upon a petition signed by a number of verified voters, with the details set out in law)
N.S. Wales = an abbreviation of New South Wales (a colony in Australia from 1788, then a state in 1901)
rank = a strong and offensive smell or taste; a description of something which smells disgusting, foul, or very unpleasant; rancid; in bad taste, coarse, foul, gross, indecent, or vulgar; something with an undesirable or extremely undesirable quality
S. Australia = an abbreviation of South Australia (a colony in Australia from 1836, then a state in 1901)
Tory = someone who is politically conservative (the term is especially used in the United Kingdom and Canada; although it has also been used in Australia, usually in pro-Labor publications); of or relating to conservatives or the Conservative Party
W. Australia = an abbreviation of Western Australia (a colony in Australia from 1829, then a state in 1901; previously known as the Swan River Colony)
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