Name:______________________________

Year 10 Modern World History

The White Australia Policy

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1. Around the time of federation, what was “the factor that united all levels of Australian

society”?

2. Explain each of these three main reasons why Australians believed in a White Australia

Policy after federation.

Australia’s Isolation

Belief in White Superiority

Economic Reasons

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Source One

3. How did the Immigration Restriction Act work?

4. Explain how the dictation test was used to prevent non-white people from entering Australia

after 1901. (see Source 1)

5. What was the result of the Pacific Island Labourers Act?

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Source Two

6. What emotional arguments does this extract (Source Two) use against the Chinese?

7. Explain how this extract uses the issue of the Chinese to argue in favour of federation.

As to the virtues of Chinese as citizens: who has seen them? ..... His house is rarely washed out; the windows are never open, and the blinds are eternally down. Look at the Chinaman’s backyard, and unless the police are constantly watching him, you will find disease and malaria seething in every hole and corner. In short his house is a den and his yard is a sewer ….. their crime is that they are a cheap race - cheap to a degree that is destructive of the white race ….. so far as thinking a Chinese war would be a calamity to Australia I fervently believe it would be the greatest blessing we could possibly receive ….. a Chinese threat of invasion would immediately federate our states into one nation.

R. Thomson Australian Nationalism: an Earnest Appeal to the Sons of Australia in Favour of Federation, (Burwood, 1888)

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Source Three

8. What particular reason did William Morris Hughes (usually known as “Billy” – Prime Minister 1915 – 23) give for fearing Japanese immigration?

9. What do you understand by his reference to the “educational test”?

Why does he think it may not work for the Japanese?

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Source Four

10. Identify the figures in this

cartoon.

11. Why would The Bulletin call

this cartoon “The Motherland’s Misalliance”? What point is the cartoon making?

12(a). How, do you think,

did the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance cause strain in the relationship between Australia and the ‘mother country’?

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Piebald Possibilities A pro-White Australia Policy cartoon from 1909