The Maltese, White Australia, and Conscription: 'Il-Tfal Ta Billy Hughes'

Abstract

In October 1916, at the height of Australia's great conscription referendum debate, a party of 214 Maltese labourers arrived off the coast of Western Australia. They travelled on a French mailboat, Gange, and were headed for Sydney. Fearful that their arrival might prejudice the case for conscription, Prime Minister William Hughes arranged for the group to be given a 'dictation test' under the terms of the 1901 Immigration (Restriction) Act. The test, which could be administered in any European language, was Hughes' most convenient lawful way of prohibiting the Maltese passengers from disembarking in Australia. The incident was a key factor in the case of the anti-conscriptionists in the days leading up to Hughes' referendum; yet it is only fleetingly mentioned in books dealing with that facet of Australia's domestic front during the War.1 The exclusion of the 214 Maltese, and a subsequent ban on Maltese new arrivals, throw into stark relief the principal forces underlying, and shaping, Australian immigration policy in the early decades of the Commonwealth. First, there was the Imperial strategy view, emanating from the British Colonial Office and Dominions Office in London, to which the Australian policy was expected to conform. Against the Imperialist perception stood the Australian labour movement whose more outspoken sections opposed all immigration on economic grounds, and who frequently expressed racial objections to specific ethnic groups. Arraigned against the narrow nationalism of the labour movement were the local Empire loyalists, exemplified by the wealthy businessmen of the Sydney Millions Club, who energetically campaigned for large-scale immigration from acceptable parts of the British Empire, including the Mother Country itself. In between these conflicting forces was the Australian government which attempted to balance the notion of 'national interest' with Imperial re quirements. The 1916 incident involving the Gange Maltese highlighted the delicate nature of the relationships within the Empire, especially where matters of migration and race were concerned. The Maltese are a useful case study of the Imperial/national dynamics of, and stresses within, Australian policy. The 212,000 inhabitants of the Mediterranean archipelago in 1916 were, according to the grand Empire vision, the Imperial brothers and sisters of fellow-British Australians. Moreover, Malta was a vital British naval base, guarding the western Mediterranean approach to the Suez Canal, and hence to India, Asia, and Australasia.