committal and is more in accord with the facts, has therefore been used its place. But, of course, the more customary term is that employed withi Australia and in other countries.

The policy is by no means new, as are the mushroom growths of certain other countries. After experiments with cheap labor, both European and Asiatic, in the early days of settlement the Australian states formulated a definite policy, the principle of which has remained unchanged ever since and the form of which has been only slightly varied. Accepted in the sixties, it was embodied in state legislation in the eighties, and was deemed to be of such importance and so well established as the very base of Australian policy that it was embodied in the very first act of the first Commonwealth Parliament (1901). It is a simple and non-discriminatory law, saying that any person of any nationality may be excluded, who cannot pass a dictation test in any given European language. Recent amendments have changed this so that the test may be administered in any language whatsoever. The test is avowedly not to determine fitness to enter, but to keep out those persons who are deemed undesirable. For instance, in two well-known cases, (1906, 1915), undesirable Germans were excluded by a test of fifty words in classical Greek. And it is conceivable that a person might be given a test either in the most technical botanical jargon or in Amaric. In the Act, no specific country or race is anywhere mentioned, and, although all knew that it was directed primarily against Asiatic immigrants, it is not primarily on a racial basis.

The aim is primarily economic, and is to maintain the standard of living and the degree of civilisation existing in Australia. Cheap labor of any kind, which will tend to lower this standard, is to be excluded. No question is raised as to the desirability of extraneous elements in themselves, but only as they affect this particular standard. Rightly or wrongly, logically or illogically, the mass of Australians are resolved to keep this principle, whatever be the sacrifice involved or the cost paid. Certain outside elements are positively to be excluded: all that Australia tries to do is to effect this without any invidious discrimination, without any offense to the susceptibilities of the peoples concerned, and in the most gentlemanly way possible. It is admitted that the methods employed are largely evasive, and certain parties, both at the time of the passage of the Act and since that time, have demanded that the exclusion of certain elements be direct and in what they term an honest straightforward manner: but it is generally felt that the general and indirect methods avoids all ill-feeling and complications arising from direct exclusion. In truth, it would seem as if this were so, for the rigorous execution of this policy has led to no important diplomatic friction with the countries affected.

The Act has been used to exclude peoples of all races. A few months ago, its operations were tested to see if the on-rush of Italian laborers to the sugar-plantations of Queensland could be checked, but it was found that a separate bill, now before the Federal Parliament, would be necessary to check, without directly excluding, the immigration.

In recent years, a distinct reaction on the part of scientific thinkers has been noticeable, and some thinkers are questioning the wisdom of the policy as at present pursued because the price paid economically is too high. The problem confronting Australia can be simply stated. Industrial development cannot proceed at the most rapid rate without cheap labor and more population. Yet the concensus of Australian opinion is to keep, and even to strengthen, the existing restrictions, e. g., the present bill to limit the influx of Italian laborers. Hence comes the economic dilemma arising immediately out of the immigration policy. Rural development is circumscribed by environment, yet manufacturing development is retarded by the stress placed on the high standard of wages-a necessary corollary of the immigration policy. This accounts for the depression in such key industries as woolen manufactures and steel foundries. In a word, Australia cannot have the advantages both ways; and scientists are coming more and more to stress the requirements of industrial development as well as the purity of the population. A time seems coming when the full results of the policy will have to be considered, and perhaps some modification introduced. But this is anathema to most people in Australia, and the emphasis is all on restriction and on the maintenance of the standard of living. The feeling is such that considerations as to whether new ethnic elements might conceivably improve this standard is out of the question. Hence the cleavage between certain thinkers and the mass of the people. But the fundamental dilemma remains.

OUTLOOK TO THE PACIFIC

As regards the Pacific, the primary Australian interest is in connection with Japan. One would not be facing the facts were one to deny that the general feeling here is, rightly or wrongly, a marked uneasiness regarding Japan. Considerable interest is taken in the direction of Japan's future development, and Australian uneasiness—almost suspicion is being allayed as it becomes clear that the industrialisation of Japan necessitates an emphasis on Manchuria, Mongolia and Siberia. The presence of Japanese interests and nationals in the Dutch East Indies, in the mandated islands. north of the equator, and in the groups of the South Pacific, on the other hand, intensified the uneasiness; and, unfortunately, this is one of the cases in which far more attention is given to alarmist and misinformed state

ments than to plain facts. Whatever the cause, the position is that this uneasiness does exist in the minds of the majority of the people, although campaigns to state the facts have recently been launched. With this, is coupled an interest in the future of China, both in itself, and as influencing the future destinies of Japan.

In the South Pacific, certain sections of the people are interested to a greater or less degree, in certain problems. It would give a false impression were one to say that any general or profund interest was taken in these matters, but the sectional interest is too great to be overlooked. First in public estimation, is the question of New Guinea, both the mandated territory and Papua. Each of these is directly administered by the Australian Commonwealth and, as far as possible, by Australians. To cope with the demand for trained administrators, a cadet system has recently been instituted and a chair of anthropology endowed at an Australian University. Australia is taking her problems of tropical administration very seriously, and realises that the savage polity is so intricate and so perplexing that a man must be thoroughly trained and must give his life-work to this duty. With this, goes an interest especially in governmental circles, in the depopulation of the islands of Melanesia and of Polynesia. This interest is the more poignant, as the supplanting populations are largely from the easterly fringe of the Asiatic continent. The edge of Asia also supplies the third interest of Australia in the Pacific, in the form of a very live anxiety regarding the future of the Dutch East Indies, which are known as the portals of the Pacific, and which are huge and (save Java) comparatively empty islands, very rich, and right athwart the southern move of any Asiatic population. This is one reason for the determined stand made in Australia for the Singapore Base when the Labor administration in England threatened to abandon the project. Australia's fourth interest in the Pacific is very strongly upheld among the Protestant churches, which have established themselves in the New Hebrides. Australia considers that her interests in the New Hebridean group have, from the first, been sacrificed, and clamors for the abolition of the notoriously unsatisfactory AngloFrench Condominium, which, by its very nature, leads to ever-increasing friction. Fifthly the same sections look with considerable interest at the problem of the 89,000 indentured Indians in Fiji.

In addition to these specific interests in the Pacific, Australia in general is extremely anxious that the cause of peace in the Pacific be promoted. This desire is evidenced in the positive encouragement given to such bodies as the League of Nations Union, in schemes for closer contact between the countries round the Pacific seaboard, in the proposal for a Labor Peace Conference in the Pacific (1926), and in the work of the Inter