WHITE LABOUR IN TROPICAL AGRICULTURE A GREAT AUSTRALIAN EXPERIMENT THE attempt to acclimatise the white man in the tropics must be recognised to be a blunder of the first magnitude. All experiments based upon the idea are mere idle and empty enterprises foredoomed to failure.' Thus in 1898 wrote Mr. Benjamin Kidd in his Control of the Tropics (p. 48), and his opinion was supported by the emphatic pronouncements of many other authorities. Nevertheless, in 1901, the Australian Parliament passed a law-the Pacific Islanders Act which prohibited the employment in Australia of indentured coloured labourers, and rendered the Australian sugar plantations dependent on white labour. It thus staked the existence of an important industry, and the loyalty to the Commonwealth of the second largest of its States, on the success of a new and daring policy. The Australian experiment is the greatest practical attempt yet made to solve the problem whether the waste spaces of the tropics can be developed as white colonies instead of as black dependencies. Hence, having recently had occasion to visit two of the four chief sugar-producing areas in Queensland, I took the opportunity of inquiring as to the progress of this bold economic adventure. THE INTRODUCTION OF KANAKAS The Australian sugar industry was founded about 1862. The suitability of the coast lands of Queensland and northern New South Wales for sugar culture had been often remarked, as in 1828, 1838 and 1845, and small plots of sugar-cane had been grown. By 1862 sufficient progress had been made in Queensland to call for an Act to regulate the leasing of land for sugar plantations. They were established first near Brisbane, and subsequently two hundred miles further north at Bundaberg, and in tropical Queensland at Mackay on the Pioneer River, at Ayr on the delta of the Burdekin River, and near Cairns. Sugar in 1868 sold in Australia for 40l. a ton, and with such generous prices the industry flourished. It was dependent for labour on South Sea Islanders called Kanakas, who had been originally introduced into Queensland about 1863 to grow cotton.1 2 Kanakas were imported by the sugar planters in such numbers that, according to the census of 1871, 35.9 per cent. of the population of Mackay and its neighbourhood were Polynesian. Several efforts were made to get rid of the Kanaka, and by the influence of Sir Samuel Griffith, the present Chief Justice of Australia, an Act was passed in 1885 prohibiting their introduction after 1890. At that time there was no alternative labour, and as the price of sugar had fallen, their deportation would have meant the abandonment of the sugar industry. Even with coloured labour all the sugar plantations at Mackay were conducted at a loss in 1888 to 1889, so that the White Australia policy was premature, and had to be postponed. Kanakas were still admitted, and in 1905 there were 8452 coloured persons engaged in the Australian sugar industry. By 1901, however, public opinion in Queensland was so convinced of the disadvantages of a mixed population that the great majority of the representatives of Queensland in both chambers of the Federal Parliament (the Senate and House of Representatives) were pledged to the abolition of Kanaka labour. Owing to their insistence the Commonwealth Parliament, in its first session, passed the Pacific Islanders Act, which prohibited the further introduction of Kanakas and decreed that those already in the country should be deported at the end of their agreements. Those who had made homes in Australia were excepted from the Act, and under this exemption 1509 were allowed to remain; the rest, to the number of 4278 were shipped back in 1905-06, leaving the sugar industry practically dependent on white labour. THE PREDICTED DOOM OF THE AUSTRALIAN SUGAR INDUSTRY As I watched Australian politics in 1901 the Australian sugar industry did not seem a promising subject for this experiment. Sugar cane had never been grown on a commercial scale by white labour, and the Australian sugar industry was said to be in an almost bankrupt condition. One leading opponent of the AntiKanaka Bill declared in a speech to the Federal Parliament in 1901 that we all know that the sugar mills are not doing well; the plantations are struggling and are heavily in debt to the financial institutions." The rateable value of the sugar-growing 1 Federal Hansard First Parliament, vol. vi. p. 7562. 2 Notes on Mackay, p. 9. 3 Report of Royal Commission . . on Sugar Industry, Queensland, 1889, p. xxvii. • Federal Hansard First Parliament, p. 5847. area at Mackay, a leading Queensland sugar district, had fallen 12 per cent. in the previous six years (from 728,000l. in 1895 to 641,000l. in 1900). In fact, some of the advocates of the deportation of the Kanakas defended the measure on the ground that the Australian sugar industry was so sickly that it would be little loss to the country, and should not be allowed to harass national policy. The Federal Parliament was emphatically warned that the exclusion of the Kanakas meant the certain and immediate ruin of the sugar industry. It was said to be impossible for white men to work in tropical Queensland, and that even if they could survive the climate, it was economically impossible for the sugar industry to pay their wages. A Royal Commission upon the Queensland Sugar Industry in 1889 had reported that for the area north of Townsville 'there was absolute unanimity amongst all the witnesses examined that white men could not cultivate cane,' and it quoted such opinions as withdrawal of black labour means shutting up the northern districts,' and that in those areas for five months in the year whites cannot work.' The majority of the Commission declared it to be our opinion that if all coloured labour be withdrawn from the plantations, the extinction of the sugar industry must speedily follow, and we therefore recommend that the introduction of Polynesian labour be permitted to continue at all events for some years longer than the period now limited. Sir Malcolm McEacharn concluded his impressive speech in the House of Representatives against the Bill for the exclusion of the Kanakas by the claim : I contend that I have proved as far as any one can prove, from the evidence of the Royal Commission, that it is utterly impossible in Mackay and north of Mackay to carry on this industry without Kanaka labour. I think that I have shown that the industry must die unless there is Kanaka labour. And he appealed to the members to hesitate 'before they take steps which must to a certainty destroy a very important industry.' The representative for Brisbane said the Bill would bring about a Commonwealth cataclysm,' and that the Bill desired to strangle the only remaining great agricultural industry she [Queensland] has left.' During the discussion in the Senate, one Senator declared his firm conviction that the Bill would cause ' utter ruination to one of the chief industries of Queensland'; another Senator, accepting the view that Northern Queensland cannot produce sugar without the aid of Kanaka labour, said the question at issue was 'whether the tropical part of our country is to be doomed to perpetual barrenness-is to remain a desert.' 6 The pulpit and the Press joined in the protest. The Bishop of Carpentaria wrote, All the farmers say the same, "If we are deprived of coloured labour, as things are at present, we are utterly ruined.' The Melbourne Argus (October 7, 1901) reported a feeling of utmost dismay among the planters, shippers, and merchants in the Cairns district,' and the view that the Bill would mean an absolute depreciation of property.' The commercial associations in Queensland were convinced that the new policy meant speedy ruin. According to the Brisbane Chamber of Commerce the effect of the proposed Federal Kanaka Bill will be immediately disastrous to the sugar industry, and to the trade and commerce of Queensland.' The Pioneer Farmers' Association of Mackay passed a resolution That this Association, consisting principally of small cane farmers, after many attempts during the past ten years to grow sugar entirely with white labour, finds it impossible to do so successfully, because of physical causes. It is distinctly a climatic and not a financial difficulty, and one which money cannot cope with. THE RESULT OF THE DEPORTATION OF THE KANAKAS In defiance of such warnings the 'Pacific Islanders' Bill' was passed by a great majority, and the Kanakas duly deported. But instead of the Queensland sugar industry having been ruined and its production diminished, both the acreage under sugar and the produce have increased, the value of sugar properties has risen, and notwithstanding the high rate of white wages the cost of sugar cane production has fallen. * This year the amount is expected to be smaller than it would otherwise have been, owing to the heavy frosts of last winter. The severity of these frosts is shown by copies of meteorological observations kindly supplied me by Mr. H. A. Hunt, the Federal Meteorologist, and by Mr. McCredie, of the Government Experimental Station at Mackay. The correspondent of the Australian Sugar Journal (8th of April 1909, p. 9), writing from Nambour, reports that the previous winter was " the most disastrous in the history of the mill. Not only was the frost unusually severe, but, what is more serious for the cane, it was almost continuous. . . . The crushing closed with a total of 34,784 tons of cane, of which more than one-half was severely frosted.' The frosts also affected the northern areas-for example, they did much injury at Mackay. Mr. Hunt tells me there is no doubt that last June was abnormally cold, especially in south-eastern Queensland. Taking the Brisbane records for example, the mean temperature, 56.3°, was 3.5° below the normal for twenty-two years, and was the lowest mean recorded.' That the growth of sugar in Australia has increased since the passing of the Anti-Kanaka Bill is shown by the preceding table." The sugar production has more than doubled, while the imports have fallen to less than one-twentieth. In fact, instead of Australia producing only about half the sugar it requires, as happened when the cane was grown by black labour, it now raises more sugar than it needs, and has some for export. Some raw sugar is still imported into Australia to be refined there; but that is now all re-exported along with the excess of the Australian production. In 1901 the imports of sugar exceeded the exports by 93,806 tons; in 1907 the conditions were reversed and the exports exceeded the imports by 12,093 tons. Another test of the extent of the industry is the area under cultivation. Instead of the industry having come to an end, the acreage of the sugar crop in Queensland has increased from 95,697 acres in 1902-the year when the anti-Kanaka legislation came into effect to 128,138 acres in 1907, an increase of 34 per cent. Before leaving London for Australia I was assured (and a member of the Queensland Parliament repeated the statement) that the expansion of the industry was due to growth in districts outside the tropics having exceeded the decrease in the tropical fields; and it is also said that the labour is still largely supplied by coloured people. But both explanations are contradicted by the facts. Sugar cultivation has decreased in the most southern districts owing, it is said, to the competition of dairy farming. Thus, in New South Wales, the sugar plantations have fallen steadily from a maximum of 32,927 acres in 1896 to 24,057 acres in 1902, and to 15,477 acres in 1908. The decrease of cultivation in New South Wales and the increase in Queensland are stated in the following table: 1904 1905 1906 92. 76 197 112,986 1908 Esti 111,070 45,424 74.375 119.799 37.9 f2.1 21.591 2,466 24,057 89.7 10.3 10.2 11.2 10.0 9.5 9.7 8.3 mate • Information not available. Budget Papers, 1908. Parliament of Commonwealth of Australia, 1908, No. 15, p. 107. • From the Budget Papers, Parliament of Commonwealth of Australia, 1908, No. 15, p. 105. |