LONDON: Indian nationalist criticisms of Mr. R.G. Casey’s appointment as Governor of Bengal have evoked lively discussions in Australian newspapers of the merits and demerits of a White Australia, writes the Canberra correspondent of the London Times on Thursday.

The correspondent points out that this alien immigration policy was designed to protect white standards of living “but this discussion reveals a growing realisation that a mere reiteration of the fact that no principle of exclusion on the ground of colour is specifically enacted in Australian law is not likely to satisfy Asiatic people in the changed order in the Pacific which the war has produced...

“Critics of this policy do not suggest that Australia should so relax it as to permit a swamping of her present population, and they do not dispute her right to control immigration of the coloured people just as she controls that of white settlers … Advocates of the continuance of total exclusion of Asiatics answer that the attitude of Australia towards Asiatic immigration is also that of Canada, New Zealand and the United States, and that an even larger influx of Asiatics such as might fundamentally change the character of Australian population would not appreciably benefit those left in Asia...” — Daily Dawn

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2019