‘The stranger in our gates’: Internment policies in the United Kingdom and Australia during the two world wars, 1914–39

Abstract

Total war in the twentieth century witnessed the unprecedented expansion of executive powers in liberal democratic societies. In Australia and the United Kingdom the primacy of common law and parliamentary responsibility was severely challenged and modified. Nowhere were these radical processes so readily identified than in the area of policy towards enemy aliens. Traditionally a liberal haven for refugees, England began modifying its policies with the Aliens Act of 1905. Though not ethnically specific this legislation began a systematic dismantling of earlier procedures. Australia, like other Dominions, never subscribed to these abstract notions of tolerance, introducing racially discriminatory legislation early within the attainment of self‐government. The First World War transformed the status of law‐abiding alien residents into the ‘enemy within the gates’, subject to internment and deportation. In Australia not only were enemy aliens interned but also those British‐born residents of enemy alien heritage might find themselves interned. Racial categorization counted more than nationality. In the Second World War regulations addressed the question of ideology as well as ethnicity. Again Australia was far more vigilant to protect British ethnic identity, interning non‐British residents who were neutral and Allied nationals. In Australia and the United Kingdom in both wars, all legal arguments concerning whether common law or extraordinary war measures had precedence were resolved in favour of executive rule and the imposition of arbitrary authority.