Labour History

Footnotes

*The author would like to thankLabour History’stwo anonymous referees for challenging aspects of his article and helping improve it. Google Scholar

1.Sir Henry Parkes, “An Australian Nation,” Melbourne Review, no.16(October1979):327. Google Scholar

3.SirHenry Parkes to Earl of Selbourne, 15 December 1883, Correspondence of Sir Henry Parkes, ML MSS 4312, vol. A932, ML SLNSW. Selbourne was Lord Chancellor in Gladstone’s government. This belief is summarised inWarwick Anderson, “Coolie Therapeutics: Labor, Race, and Medical Science in Tropical Australia,” International Labor and Working-Class History, no.91(Spring2017):49, and discussed more extensively inWarwick Anderson, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science and Racial Destiny in Australia(:Melbourne University Press, 2002). Google Scholar

4.Parkes, “An Australian Nation,” 327. Google Scholar

5.Northrup, David, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922(:Cambridge University Press, 1995), 14. Google Scholar

6.SeeRoger B. Joyce, Samuel Walker Griffith(:University of Queensland Press, 1984):168–69. I have used capitals (Liberals, Conservatives) to identify political figures who were aligned with the parliamentary parties; see speech of Thomas McIlwraith in debate on theLabourers from British India Act Repeal Billfor an example of the self-identification of the parties as Liberal and Conservative, QPD LA 37(27 July1882), 195. Google Scholar

7.Phil Griffiths, “The Strategic Fears of the Ruling Class: The Construction of Queensland’s Chinese Immigrants Regulation Act of 1877,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 58, no.1(March2012):1–19. Google Scholar

8.Ian Moles, “The Indian Coolie Labour Issue in Queensland,” Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 5, no.5(1957):1345–72. Myra Willard also has a superficial narrative account of the issue inMyra Willard, The History of the White Australia Policy to 1920(:Melbourne University Press, 1967), 99–106. Google Scholar

9.W. L. Thorpe, “Class and Politics in Recent Queensland Historiography: A Marxist Critique,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 33, no.1(1987):19–29. Google Scholar

10.Marilyn Lake andHenry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the Question of Racial Equality(:Melbourne University Press, 2008), 6, 54. Google Scholar

11.D. B. Waterson, Squatter, Selector, and Storekeeper: A History of the Darling Downs 1859–93(:Sydney University Press, 1968), 21–22. Google Scholar

12.Charles Schindler, “The Evolution of Political Parties,” Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 1, no.3(August1917):130–39. Google Scholar

13. Maryborough Chronicle, 23 November1878. Google Scholar

14.Waterson, Squatter, Selector, and Storekeeper, 264. Google Scholar

15.Joyce, Samuel Walker Griffith, esp. 13, 25–35, 62–63, 79–84, 106–109. Google Scholar

16.Bradley Bowden, “‘Some Mysterious Terror’: The Relationship between Capital and Labour in Ipswich, 1861–96,” Labour History, no.72(May1997):77–100. Google Scholar

17.The Week(Brisbane), 5 January1882, 12;Kay Elizabeth Saunders, “Uncertain Bondage: An Analysis of Indentured Labour in Queensland to 1907, with Particular Reference to the Melanesian Servants”(PhD diss.,University of Queensland, 1974), 240–42. See alsoCarl A. Feilberg, “The Future of North-Eastern Australia,” Victorian Review 1, no.5(March1880):708. Google Scholar

18.Rose Cullen, “Empire, Indian Indentured Labour and the Colony: The Debate over ‘Coolie’ Labour in New South Wales, 1836–1838,” History Australia 9, no.1(2012):104–106. Google Scholar

19.Quoted in Saunders, “Uncertain Bondage,”before p.1. Google Scholar

20.Phil Griffiths, “The ‘Necessity’ of a Socially Homogeneous Population: The Ruling Class Embraces Racial Exclusion,” Labour History, no.108(May2015):124–29. Google Scholar

21.Richard Fogel andStanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery(,Little Brown, 1974), 183. Google Scholar

22.For example, speech ofHenry Jordan, Queensland Parliamentary Debates (QPD), Legislative Assembly (LA) 41(5 February1884):244;Premier Samuel Griffith cited in Saunders,“Uncertain Bondage,” 229;Andrew Inglis Clark to Premier of Tasmania (P. O. Fysh), 24 April 1888, Queensland Legislative Assembly (QLA) Votes and Proceedings (V&P) 3(1888):199–201and also published inSydney Morning Herald, 15 May 1888;Charles H. Pearson, National Life and Character: A Forecast, 2nd edn (:Macmillan and Co., 1894), 42. Google Scholar

23.Speech bySamuel Griffith, QPD LA 37(27 July1882):189. Google Scholar

24.Clive Moore, “Revising the Revisionists: The Historiography of Immigrant Melanesians in Australia,” Pacific Studies 15, no.2(June1992):66–67. Google Scholar

25.Saunders, “Uncertain Bondage”;Kay Saunders, Workers in Bondage: The Origins and Bases of Unfree Labour in Queensland 1824–1916(:University of Queensland Press, 1982), xvii–xix, 20–34. Google Scholar

26.Clive Moore, Kanaka: A History of Melanesian Mackay(:Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies and University of Papua New Guinea Press, 1985), 47. Google Scholar

27.Tracey Banivanua Mar, Violence and Colonial Dialogue: The Australian-Pacific Indentured Labour Trade(:University of Hawai’i Press, 2007), 12. Google Scholar

28.Adrian Graves, Cane and Labour: The Political Economy of the Queensland Sugar Industry, 1862–1906(:Edinburgh University Press, 1993), 224. Google Scholar

29.Kay Saunders, “‘Frolicsome Urchins?’: The ‘reliable’ Servant,”inRace Relations in Colonial Queensland: A History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination, ed.Raymond Evans,Kay Saunders andKathryn Cronin(:University of Queensland Press, 1988), 158. Google Scholar

30.Saunders, “Frolicsome Urchins,” 159. Google Scholar

31. QPD Legislative Council (LC) 40(5 February1884):47–48. Google Scholar

32.Rates of death for Islanders can be found in Kay Saunders,“‘From Dawn to Dusk’: The Plantation Regime,”in Evans,Saunders andCronin, Race Relations in Colonial Queensland, 188; alsoGraves, Cane and Labour, 248. Google Scholar

33.Banivanua Mar, Violence and Colonial Dialogue, 66. Google Scholar

34.Quoted in Saunders,“Uncertain Bondage,” 229. Google Scholar

35.Jeffray to Griffith, 4 October 1884, QLA V&P 2(1884):931. Google Scholar

36. Brisbane Courier, 23 September 1867, quoted inD. K. Dignan, “Kanaka Political Struggle: An Analysis of the Attitude of Conflicting Groups to the Introduction, and Employment in Queensland, of South Sea Island Labour”(, c.1949), 15–16. Google Scholar

37.The highly influential J. C. R. Colomb made a similar distinction, but added a third category, that of the military colony; inThe Naval and Military Resources of the Colonies(:Harrison, 1879), 3, bound in volume of Australian pamphlets, ML SLNSW, also online athttps://archive.org/details/cihm_03785. Google Scholar

38.Herman A. M. Merivale, Lectures on Colonization and Colonies: Delivered before the University of Oxford in 1839, 1840 & 1841(:Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1861), 576. Google Scholar

39. Ibid., 346–47. Google Scholar

40. QPD LA 23(22 May1877):53. Google Scholar

41. Ibid., 59. Google Scholar

42. QPD LA 43(6 August1884):272–75. Google Scholar

43.Phil Griffiths, “Containing Discontent: Anti-Chinese Racism in the Reinvention of Angus Cameron,” Labour History, no.94(May2008):72, 83. Google Scholar

44. QPD LA 41(13 February1884):334. Google Scholar

45. Ibid., 337. Google Scholar

46. Ibid., 337–38, 345. Google Scholar

47.See, for example, speech by Dr O’Doherty, QPD LC 40(6 February1884):52–54. Google Scholar

48.Advertisement for election of F. T. Amhurst for electorate of Mackay, Mackay Mercury, 16 November 1878;“Polynesian Labour,” Mackay Mercury, 11 January 1879; Speech byWilson, QPD LC 40(6 February1884):57. Google Scholar

49.QPD LA 23(22 May1877):53. Google Scholar

50. Ibid., 59. Google Scholar

51. Brisbane Courier, 19 May1880, 2, cols 5–6. Google Scholar

52. QLA V&P 2(1882):543. Google Scholar

53. QLA V&P 2(1883):430. Google Scholar

54.See correspondence published inQLA V&P 2(1882):543–49(and regulations following), QLA V&P 1(1883):429–30(and regulations following). It is significant that attempts to limit the hours of work for Pacific Island labourers in 1880 – initially proposed by petulant squatters in the Legislative Council – had ultimately been defeated. Google Scholar

55.The “Labourers from British India Act Repeal Bill,” moved by Griffith on 18 July 1882, QPD LA 37(18 July1882):98; the second reading debate is on 27 July 1882, QPD LA 37(27 July1882):188–219. Google Scholar

56. QPD LA 37(27 July1882):190–91. See also speech ofWilliam Kellett, 201. Google Scholar

57.Bruce Mansfield, “Australian Nationalism in the Growth of the Labour Movement in the Eighteen-Eighties in New South Wales, with Reference to Queensland” (MA diss.,University of Sydney, 1951), 227(typed 226), citingDongjia muhang, 28 January1888. Google Scholar

58. QPD LA 37(27 July1882):197. Google Scholar

59. Ibid. Google Scholar

60. Ibid., 199–200. Google Scholar

65.QLA V&P 1(1883–84):1423. Google Scholar

66.QPD LC 40(30 January1884):40. See also speech by the leading radical Liberal, William Brookes, QPD LA 41(5 February1884):238. Google Scholar

67.QPD LC 40(30 January1884):41. Google Scholar

68. Ibid., 40. Google Scholar

69.QPD LA 41(5 February1884):249. Google Scholar

70.Speech of Garrick, QPD LC 40(30 January1884):56. Google Scholar

71.Christine Doran, Separatism in Townsville, 1884 to 1894: “We Should Govern Ourselves”(:History Dept, James Cook University, 1981);Lyndon Megarrity, “Robert Philp and the Politics of Development in Queensland 1890–1903”(PhD diss.,University of New England, 2001), 92–97. Google Scholar

72.SeeQLA V&P 2(1884):827–28, for the text of the letter to the Colonial Office; the only public signatures to the letter were those ofJeffray andJ. Ewen Davidson, managing director of the Melbourne-Mackay Sugar Co., a subsidiary of Sloane’s. SeeMackay Mercury, 8 October 1884, for report of the letter, including number of signatories. SeeQPD LA 43(24 September1885):778–79, for discussion in Parliament of the letter after it had been published in the Brisbane newspapers. Google Scholar

73.Griffith to Governor, Queensland, 30 September 1884, QLA V&P 2(1884):929. Google Scholar

74.Jeffray to Griffith, 20 November 1884, Ibid., 939. Google Scholar

75.Mackay Mercury, 18 October1884. Google Scholar

76.Mackay Mercury, 29 October 1884. The meeting was held in the afternoon, ensuring that it was dominated by those businesspeople who could afford to attend during a weekday. Google Scholar

77.Christine Doran, Separatism in Townsville. Google Scholar

78.See, for instance,William Coote, “Proposed New Colony of Northern Queensland,” Victorian Review(May1885), 58–70. Coote was Secretary of the Executive Committee of the North Queensland Separation Council. Google Scholar

79.QPD LA 49(27 August1886):539. In fact, what Hume Black had actually said to his fellow planters, when reporting on his tour of the north from February–April 1885, was this: “In the North there was an intense antagonism against coolie labor, and if the planters thought they could get that labor against the wishes of the people they were mistaken. But the planters were willing to leave their fate to the decision of the people of the North. He regretted if his remarks should discourage the planters, but he held out the hope of a rational discussion of their interests. They would have an intelligent representation of the requirements of individual industries … When asked if they intended the tropical sugar industry to perish the meeting shouted no.”Mackay Mercury, 25 April1885, 2, col. 4. Google Scholar

80.QPD LA 49(2 September1886):635. Google Scholar

81.Brisbane Courier, 28 August1886, 4, cols 5–6. Google Scholar

82.Brisbane Courier, 21 August1886, 4, col. 6. Google Scholar

83.Davidson and Lawes to Colonial Office, 14 January 1885, inQLA V&P 1(1885):377–78.Davidson andLawes were, of course, wrong about theLabourers from British India Acthaving been repealed. Google Scholar

84.Mackay Mercury, 17 January1885. Google Scholar

85.Mackay Standard, 17 April1885. Google Scholar

87.Mackay Mercury, 25 April1885. Google Scholar

88.Brisbane Courier, 25 May1885, 5; ibid., 4 May1884, 4; ibid., 26 May1885, 4;QPD LA 47(15 October1885):1078–82. Google Scholar

89.QPD LA 49(20 July1886):98–107, 128–35;QPD LC 47(29 July1886):28–31. Google Scholar

90.Sir Henry Holland’s rejection of the separation petition is contained in both a letter to the Queensland Governor, 14 June 1887, and a transcript of his interviews with the North Queensland separationist delegation of Hume Black, Isidore Lissner (MLA Kennedy) and Tory MP Harold Finch-Hatton; seeQLA V&P 1(1887):441–52. Google Scholar

91.Doran, Separatism in Townsville, 42–43. Google Scholar

92.Feilberg, “The Future of North-Eastern Australia.” Google Scholar

93.Feilberg, 707–708. Google Scholar

94. Ibid., 708. Google Scholar

95.QPD LA 49(27 August1886):552–53. Google Scholar

96.Brisbane Courier, 28 August1886, 4, col. 6. Google Scholar

97. Ibid., 21 August1886, 4, col. 6. Google Scholar

98. Ibid. Google Scholar

99.See alsoTownsville Herald, 28 Aug1886, 9. Google Scholar

100.Brisbane Courier, 3 September1886, 4, cols. 5–6. Google Scholar

101.Griffiths,“The ‘Necessity’ of a Socially Homogeneous Population”;Lake andReynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line. Google Scholar

102.Lyndon Megarrity, “‘White Queensland’: The Queensland Government’s Ideological Position on the Use of Pacific Island Labourers in the Sugar Sector 1880–1901,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 52, no.1(March2006):1–12. Google Scholar

103.Sydney Morning Herald, 22 April1885, 8, col. 6 and 9, col. 1. Google Scholar

104.D. J. Murphy, “Trade Unions,”inThe Big Strikes: Queensland 1889–1965, ed.D. J. Murphy(:University of Queensland Press, 1983), 33–34. Google Scholar

105.Brisbane Courier, 25 August1886, 5, col. 5. Google Scholar

106.Phil Griffiths, “Notes on Early Trade Unionism in Townsville,” The Queensland Journal of Labour History, no.13(September2011):17–23. Google Scholar

107.North Queensland Telegraph and Territorial Separationist, 5 February1887. Google Scholar

108.Edward Shann, An Economic History of Australia(:Cambridge University Press, 1930), 258. Google Scholar

109.Adrian Graves, “The Nature and Origins of Pacific Islands Labour Migration to Queensland, 1863–1906,”inInternational Labour Migration: Historical Perspectives, ed.Shula Marks andPeter Richardson(:Maurice Temple Smith, 1984), 116;Anderson, Cultivation of Whiteness, 86. Google Scholar

110.Telegram from Premier SA to Govts Victoria, NSW, Qld, Tasmania, NZ, WA, 30 May 1892, Chief Secretary’s Letters Sent to Other Governments, 11 (1892), 186–87, GRG 24/28, State Records of South Australia. Google Scholar

111.Holder’s speech, South Australian Parliamentary Debates (SAPD) Legislative Assembly (LA)(14 June1892): col. 34; Gould’s speech, SAPD LA(16 June1892): col. 105. Google Scholar

112.David Johanson, “History of the White Australia Policy,”inImmigration: Control or Colour Bar? The Background to “White Australia” and a Proposal for Change, ed.Immigration Reform Group(:Immigration Reform Group, 1962), 22–23. Google Scholar

113.Sydney Telegraph, 2 June 1892;Sir Henry Parkes, Fifty Years in the Making of Australian History(:Books for Libraries Press, 1971, first published1892), 570–79. Google Scholar

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