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Julia Martinez[1]
In the period before 1910 the maritime industries of Port Darwin relied almost exclusively on an Asian labour force. The pearling industry employed Japanese, Malay and Filipino crews, the local fishing industry was dominated by the Chinese, the wharf labourers and seamen employed by stevedores were mainly Chinese, Filipino and Javanese. Port Darwin, located in the southern tropics of South-East Asia, was a typical colonial outpost. As a part of White Australia, however, it was regarded as a problem. This paper considers the responses of the Australian government, business and union representatives in Port Darwin to the presence of Asian workers and the attempts made to introduce an all-white workforce into the stevedoring and pearling industries.
When Prime Minister Andrew Fisher took office in April 1910 one of the Labor government’s first priorities was to transfer the Northern Territory from South Australian administration to federal control. The government passed the Northern Territory Acceptance Act and the Northern Territory Administration Act 1910.[2] The take-over of the Territory meant that the Federal Government would shoulder the financial debts incurred by the South Australian government, but these economic considerations were regarded as secondary. The main objective to ensure that the Territory was brought under the full control of the White Australia policy.[3]
In order to achieve this end the port of Darwin was to be more strictly monitored so as to prevent any illicit landing of ‘coloured’ immigrants and at the same time those ‘coloured’ residents in Darwin were to be encouraged to leave. In 1911 Darwin had a population of 1387, including 442 Chinese, 374 Europeans, 247 ‘full-blood Aboriginals’, with the rest being Japanese, Filipino, ‘half-caste’ Aboriginal and Timorese.[4] As a means of persuading Asian residents to leave, the government passed a series of Ordinances designed to restrict work in these industries to European workers. The two most significant dealt with the pearling and stevedoring industries.
When the White Australia policy was first implemented by the Federal Government in 1901, the pearl-shelling industry had been exempt from the provisions of the Immigration Restriction Act, making it the only industry to be allowed indentured ‘coloured’ labour in Australia.[5] Under the Fisher Labor government, however, this exemption was revoked. New legislation decreed that no licences would be issued after December 1912, unless both the divers and tenders were European.[6] After protests from the pearling industry, extensions were granted and the Fisher government appointed a Royal Commission, headed by F.W. Bamford, to investigate. Although the Commission began with the intention of supporting white labour, in 1913 the Liberal government appointed new commissioners and by the final report in 1916 they came down in favour of continued indentured labour.[7] The 1916 report concluded that the pearl-shell industry was not suitable for white divers, stating:
The life is not a desirable one, and the risks are great, as proved by the abnormal death rate amongst divers and try divers. The work is arduous, the hours long, and the remuneration quite inadequate. Living space is cramped, the food wholly preserved of its different kinds, and the life incompatible with that a European worker is entitled to liv[8].8
J.S. Bach, writing in 1956, argued that by continuing to allow ‘coolie’ labour the federal government had undermined the moral authority of White Australia.[9] But contemporary supporters were most concerned with the supposed danger of ‘racial contamination’ and argued that they would have little effect on White Australia as the pearling crews spent little time on shore and repatriation would prevent them from becoming permanent residents.[10] Even Labor Senator Staniforth Smith argued that White Australia would ‘not be endangered by the employment of coloured crews on the pearling fleets; provided the Acts and regulations in existence are firmly and strictly administered’.[11] The European pearling masters were convinced that white workers were inherently incapable of diving for shell, claiming that the Japanese were the most skilled and successful divers.[12] Regina Ganter, writing in The Pearl-Shellers of Torres Strait, concluded that the exemption was ultimately a concession to the pearl-shellers, who had threatened to leave Australia if they were denied access to Japanese divers. Clark, who had already moved a large fleet in 1905 from Thursday Island to the Dutch East Indies had amply demonstrated that this was a very real threat.[13]
Mother-of-pearl shell was first discovered in Port Darwin harbour in 1884, prompting a rush of pearling boats from the Torres Straits. The muddiness of the water, however, prevented the divers from working satisfactorily and the industry was abandoned within three years.[14] The industry revived and in 1902 when Government Resident Dashwood made his report, the pearling industry in Port Darwin was thriving.[15] Darwin pearling masters, like those in Broome and Thursday Island, were adamant that ‘coloured’ labour was necessary. A.E. Jolly, the owner of seventeen luggers, relied solely on ‘coloured’ labour. He told Dashwood that:
The Japanese are by far the best divers. They are temperate. Manilamen drink. The Chinese are not good sailors. We only take Chinese if we cannot get others.[16]
Jolly argued that white divers were incapable of performing the task. He threatened to abandon the industry if he were forced to use white labour. Another Darwin pearler, Henry Charles Edwards, who owned thirteen luggers, similarly argued in favour of Japanese divers, claiming that they had superior eyesight for finding shell.[17]
In the early days of Darwin pearling, Filipinos, sometimes referred to as Manilamen, were employed. After Federation, however, very few indentured Filipinos were brought into Australia. By the late 1920s, those Filipinos left in the industry tended to be older, long-term residents who had given up diving and taken on shore work. Having arrived in Australia before 1901, they were described as ‘free men’ and permitted to stay as permanent residents.[18] Chinese were rarely employed on luggers and after 1920 there were virtually no Chinese employed in the industry.[19] The favoured ethnic groups were Japanese as divers, tenders and engineers, and Malay and Koepangers as crew. In addition, pearling captains took on casual Aboriginal labour once they had cleared Darwin harbour and were closer to the pearling beds. By 1911 when the Commonwealth took over the Northern Territory, there were 31 boats in service employing 138 men. Of those 120 were indentured under permit from the Minister for External Affairs and the rest were ‘Asiatic’ residents of Darwin.[20]
Despite the 1916 decision to allow ‘coloured’ workers in the pearling industry, after World War One, the pearling industry in Darwin dwindled. By 1923 there were only two boats employing four Japanese and eight Aboriginal crew. It was not until 1925, when Victor Clark decided to bring three luggers from Broome, that the industry began to revive. In 1925, the Federal Government sent the Sub-Collector of Customs in Darwin instructions for dealing with the employment of indentured labour.[21]The degree of red-tape associated with the industry was an indication that the government intended to keep a close watch on the indentured workers, assuring themselves that everything was being done to safeguard White Australia.[22] Pearling Masters were obliged to buy permits and to pay a bond for each indentured worker. The bond was £250 for up to 10 men and could be returned only after the indent was back in his country of origin. Each indent was required to have a medical certificate and a identity card with two thumbprints and two photographs. These regulations addressed two of the preoccupations of White Australia - that immigrants might introduce contagious diseases to Australia and that they might attempt to remain as permanent residents.
The period of engagement was, in practice, much longer than regulations suggested. During the first three years if indents wished to change employers they were required to have the permission of their former employer. After six years, however the original employer would no longer have any special claim to their services. Many indents remained in Australia for all of their adult working lives. Registers were kept detailing date of employment, number and nationality of indents, deaths and causes, and prosecutions and the offence. These were intended to monitor and protect the working conditions of the indents - White Australia was concerned to avoid any suggestion of forced or exploitative labour conditions. The recording of prosecutions, however, was designed to protect the interests of the white community. At the first sign of ‘racial’ conflict or ‘undisciplined’ behaviour, the government could order the repatriation of the indents in question.
In order to prevent any competition with white workers, indents, who lived ashore for several months in the lay-up season, were permitted to engage only in work connected with their luggers, such as overhauling and painting. A final regulation, which was designed to control Japanese monopoly over the industry was that not more than five men of the same nationality were permitted on the one lugger.[23] Thus, even though the pearling industry was officially exempted from the White Australia policy, the regulations were clearly formulated with the primary concerns of White Australia in mind.
The number of Asian crews employed in the pearling industry remained fairly steady throughout the 1930s, with the peak year being 1936. Chief Pearling Inspector Karl Nylander reported that in 1936 a total of 238 men were employed on 27 luggers, including 130 Japanese and 103 Malays.[24] Apart from a few years of uncertainty for pearling masters the White Australia policy ultimately had little effect on the pearling industry. The pearling masters’ ability to discourage government restrictions was undoubtedly helped by the revenue raised by pearl-shell. Exports from Port Darwin in 1936 totalled £42,530 while mother-of pearl shell made up £36,689 of the total. By comparison fish exported to Hong Kong brought in £397 and Beche-de-mer £845.[25] Perhaps most significant was that this was a ‘floating’ industry, based primarily off-shore. The prospect of losing the pearling fleet to the Dutch East Indies had allowed the government to bypass the concerns of White Australia.
The second part of this paper deals with the stevedoring industry in Port Darwin. The discussion of the employment of Asian workers in this industry is offered by way of contrast to the pearling industry. It was different in several crucial characteristics. It was the domain of one of the strongest sectors of the Australian labour movement - one in which Prime Minister Fisher himself had been involved. It was firmly based ‘on-shore’ and therefore clearly subject to all the restrictions of White Australia and it was a job which attracted large numbers of unskilled Australian labourers.
Hiring practices at Port Darwin were brought to the attention of the Federal Government in 1908. McDougall questioned Deakin regarding a Bulletin article which stated that Northern Territory shipping agents were ‘employing Chinamen in lieu of whites to unload and sort cargoes’. McDougall asked how the government could guarantee that ‘Asiatics and opium’ were not coming into the Commonwealth ‘at ports where Chinamen are being employed’.[26] These issues were addressed in 1911 when the Federal Government ordered the replacement of Chinese ‘coolies’ with European waterside workers.[27] Darwin’s Chinese community protested to the Minister for External Affairs, stating:
It is stipulated in inviting tenders for contracts that the work must be performed by European labor if available. This shuts up avenues of employment formerly open to Chinese. Many Chinese coolies until recently found employment as wharf laborers, but now the ship’s agents inform us that European labor must be employed...[28]
Ironically, as white unionists began to organise, it was they who gave the Fisher government pause. From the beginning, the transition to white labour did not go as the government had planned. Official sanction had been given to the white-only labour policy, but the administration was not prepared for the strength of union action that would accompany this policy. In March 1912 a Darwin branch of the Amalgamated Workers’ Association of North Queensland, which was affiliated to Townsville, was formed. At the first meeting, with 40 members present, it was decided to demand higher waterside worker rates. The anonymous ‘Asiatics’ who were currently acting as waterside workers were represented as the enemies of unionism. The new union proposed to strike for higher wages and warned the stevedores: ‘That in the event of any steamer being worked by Asiatics, southern unions be advised not to unload such vessel on her return to southern ports.’ The shipping agents involved were P. Kelsey for A.E. Jolly & Co. representing the Burns Philp Line, Walter Bell & Co. for the C.N. Line and E.V.V. Brown for E. & A. SS Line.[29] The agents offered to pay the waterside workers the Cairns rate of pay. When the union rejected their offer, they went ahead and employed non-union workers.[30]
As the strike continued, hostility between unionists and the Labor administration became clear. When the unionists waited on the Labor Administrator, Dr. Gilruth, he adamantly refused to grant preference to unionists, and took steps to break the strike.[31] According to the Brisbane Courier,
the clerical staff of the Federal Socialist Government was organised into a gang of ‘scabs and blacklegs’ and they set to work to get the cargo out... The companions and co-workers of the strike breakers are a gang of natives from the Aboriginal Department - no doubt pressed into the service - and the Javanese crew of the Van Linschoten.[32]
The Courier described the Fisher government as the ‘father of a delightful gang of white, black and yellow strike breakers’ and asked: ‘Who is now smashing the policy which Mr. Fisher brags about?’ From the perspective of Parliament, Fisher was the champion of White Australia, but a very different picture emerged from this incident.
Despite the perception that Asian waterside workers were inherently a threat to the aims of the labour movement, the Chinese waterside workers refused to break the strike. The Brisbane Courier commented on the support received from the Chinese workers stating:
Unlike some white full-flavoured Socialists they stuck to the union. Alas that the only friends of the strikers at Darwin are the Chinese![33]
After the failure of the 1913 strike, Darwin unionists decided to join the AWU.[34] The union was included in the Queensland Branch and attached to Northern District, under Secretary J. Dash who in turn was under Dunstan as Branch Secretary for Queensland[35] The union membership rules of the AWU clearly excluded Asian workers, stipulating that:
no Chinese, Japanese, Kanakas, or Afghans, or colored aliens other than Maories, American negroes [sic], and issue of mixed parentage born in Australasia shall be admitted to membership. Provided that no fresh applicant claiming admission as the issue of mixed parentage born in Australasia shall be admitted to membership unless he produces a certificate of birth.[36]
The first organiser for the AWU was Harold Nelson.[37] In 1914, the AWU signed on 109 members who were predominantly Irish, Scottish, Russian and Greek.[38] The Darwin AWU continued to support the White Australia line focusing their attack on Chinese workers. The new secretary, Robert Toupein, held a meeting in 1914, at which it was decided to appeal to the Federated Waterside Workers ‘to assist in the fight against the employment of Asiatics, and for a White Australia, by refraining from landing any cargo for Port Darwin.’[39] They were successful and were granted preference for unionists on the wharf, including the unloading from the ship, a job which had previously been done by the ship’s so-called ‘coolie’ crews.[40] The AWU established a Permanent Waterside Worker’s section and set about negotiating an Award wage.[41] Their success where the previous union had failed is testimony to the powerful connections of the AWU.
Criticism of this ‘success’ for White Australia came from Gilruth, who reported in his Annual Report of 1914-15 that:
In the month of October, owing to the refusal of the men to handle cargo on the wharf unless white labour was also employed on the ship during discharge, the practice which had been in vogue since the Territory was occupied, namely, that of unloading ships by means of their coolie crews, ceased. The result, naturally, has been a considerable increase in the landed cost of materials, and also delays in discharging the ships …[42]
When the Arbitration Court laid down the first Commonwealth award for waterside workers, Gilruth complained that this was too much as most of the waterside workers did not have families, ‘while practically none of the foreign workers - Russian, Maltese, Greeks, &c., have evidently any relatives in Australia’.[43]
In response to the advent of unionism on the wharf and their exclusion from the local union, the Asian waterside workers attempted to form a local branch of the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1915 Cubillo, a Filipino ex-pearler, sent in the names and subscriptions of nineteen Chinese, Malays, Filipinos, Japanese and Cingalese. The central IWW executive anticipated success in Darwin and organised for their literature to be translated into Chinese.[44] Apparently they had a change of heart as nothing more was done to organise the Darwin workers.
The relationship between Darwin unionists and the fledgling IWW was problematic from the outset. In 1915 when the Darwin AWU found itself unable to control their waterside workers it decided to abolish the section and relinquish control of the wharf. Seizing this opportunity, Cubillo approached Alf Pain and asked him to negotiate with the shipping companies on behalf of the ‘honorary’ IWW members. Pain successfully organised for a gang of 23 Chinese and Filipino, as well as three white workers, to work under the name of the IWW. Before commencing work, he first obtained a guarantee from the shipping agents that AWU wages and conditions would be granted to the ‘coloured’ IWW members. Despite having renounced its control of the wharf, the AWU responded quickly to the threat posed by Pain’s workers and demanded to retake control.[45]
A distorted version of Pain’s actions had reached Tom Barker, the General Secretary of the IWW in Sydney. He criticised Pain, declaring that he had ‘acted as a catspaw for the employers’. Barker sided with the AWU on the matter, stating:
When the I.W.W. goes out to organise the colored workers, it does not go out with the intention of using them to scab on the white workers, neither does it go out upon any sentimental ground of brotherhood. The colored worker is too strong a factor to be ignored.[46]
If the IWW were unconcerned with the plight of the Chinese workers, there were others in Port Darwin who were. A sympathetic report appeared in the Northern Territory Times:
The colored men who are working the ‘Nisshu Maru’ are all old residents of the Northern Territory, and, a few years back, did all the Waterside work. They are all sailors and efficient waterside men, but with the march of events, they have now a very precarious means of existence, as unionists will not permit them to be employed on any works with unionists, and they are denied all Government work. The average period of residence in Australia of each of those now employed is over twenty-one years... Their membership of the I.W.W. has availed them nothing, for the stronger union here will not recognise their right to employment anywhere. They are exceedingly timid men, and under a demonstration of force of the watersiders on Friday evening they almost broke into flight.[47]
Over the next decade there were no other attempts made by Asian waterside workers to regain their employment.
Despite opposition from the administration, the shipping agents and IWW unionists, by 1916 the AWU had established itself as a strong union on behalf of Darwin’s white watersiders. The union secured an award wage for Darwin waterside workers which was 43 per cent higher than the Sydney award, being based on the cost of living in Darwin.[48] In 1917 Darwin was officially recognised as a Branch of the AWU in its own right, with some 1400 members.[49]
In June 1916 the stevedoring at Port Darwin was taken over by the Northern Agency Ltd., a subsidiary of Vesteys. By April 1919, the waterside workers had become organised into permanent gangs being paid £6 7s 6d. a week. The administration raised the rates for cargo per ton to compensate for the extra wages but finally permanent gangs were removed and casuals were once again used on the wharf and the sorting shed in 1920.[50] With the closing of the Vesteys Meat Works in 1919 there was of course less employment for waterside workers. The Northern Agency remained stevedores until October 1921, when they refused to agree to government plans to have the Commonwealth Railways take partial control of stevedoring, being responsible for goods once unloaded from the ship’s slings, leaving only the ship-board work to the Northern Agency.[51]
In 1921, under the guidance of Harold Nelson, the Darwin AWU was reformed as the North Australian Industrial Union (NAIU) which was to be a proto-type One Big Union.[52] The new union was criticised both by the government and more moderate unionists. A 1922 newspaper article commented on the chaos on the wharf under the Commonwealth Government:
The Railway Department has taken over the wharf and the bond, and anyone is at liberty to do his own carting. Formerly, no one without a union ticket could do any carting from the bond, the railway or the jetty... At present there are no unions properly speaking in the N.T.[53]
In that year a break-away union was formed in opposition to the newly established NAIU, calling itself the Northern Territory Workers’ Union (NTWU). The NTWU members had initially attempted to resurrect the branch of the AWU, but they had been rejected by the central AWU executive.[54] The NTWU argued that Nelson was too authoritarian and his policies too radical. They had witnessed the Darwin Rebellion of 1919 and the closing of Vestey’s Meat works and had decided that the ‘direct action’ approach was threatening the livelihood of Darwin’s workers. Instead, they advocated ‘a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay’.
Their stance made them popular with the conservative administration.[55] The new administrator, F.C. Urquhart had been sent to Darwin in 1921 to ‘curb the “socialist extremists”‘.[56] He had not long since been the Police Commissioner in Brisbane, in charge of putting down the Red Flag Riots.[57] He approved of the formation of the NTWU by workers whom he described as ‘boycotted and persecuted men cast out and deprived of their livelihood by the tyrants of the North Australian Industrial Union.[58] Over the next few years the two unions fought bitterly over who was entitled to wharf work, and in 1927, the two unions finally amalgamated, forming the North Australia Workers’ Union (NAWU). The new union, however, retained the exclusionary membership rules of the AWU in regard to Asian workers.
A 1928 article by Sir William Sowden, entitled ‘Darwin - The Damned’, described the 60-odd watersiders thus:
The men who handled our cargo so tenderly were mostly Greeks, Italians, Filipinos (who went to the Territory originally as luggermen at 25/- a week), nondescripts and various degrees of castes. There were not more than two or three Britons of any kind among them. This shows how thoroughly we preserve from pollution our ‘White Australia’ ...
His attack on the watersiders, whom he referred to collectively as ‘Dagoes’, ‘foreigners’ and ‘dusky gentlemen’, was chiefly aimed at their use of ‘go slow’ methods to achieve what he deemed to be ‘excessive wages’. The only ‘Asian’ workers mentioned by Sowden were Filipino workers. These men were allowed to join the union under the clause dealing with those of ‘mixed parentage’ - many Filipinos were able to claim Spanish descent.
The inclusion of so-called ‘half-castes’ in the waterside section eventually allowed a number of workers of Asian descent to join the NAWU. In 1936, NAWU secretary, Jack McDonald was still concerned to restrict wharf work to ‘white’ workers and lobbied against the use of pearling ‘coolies’ on the wharf. But despite his rhetoric, the term ‘white’ was no longer appropriate to describe the waterside workers.[59] McDonald’s use of the term ‘white’ was called into question by C.L.A. Abbott, a former Minister for the Interior in Canberra. Abbott had taken up the post of Administrator for the Territory in 1937. Being devoutly anti-labour, he immediately set about undermining the NAWU.[60] During the investigation into the Waterside Workers’ Award, Abbott criticised the Arbitration Court for awarding Darwin waterside workers such high rates of pay. He questioned the worth of their labour and suggested that the workers were ‘racially’ inferior. As evidence, he presented a list of 81 names of waterside workers, including those of Italian, Greek, Spanish, Chinese and Malay background, and commented that the ‘types and origins’ of the workers were ‘very mixed indeed’.[61] This confusing use of White Australian rhetoric was common in this period. During an industrial dispute between the Burns Philp steamer ‘Montoro’ and the NAWU in 1939, the ship’s officers claimed that they were ‘now firm believers in the abandonment of the White Australia policy as far as Darwin is concerned’. Burns Philp steamers were notorious for employing ‘coloured’ crews at cheap rates. McDonald commented that the company clearly desired ‘coolie rates and conditions to operate on the wharf as they did on board the ships.[62] For Burns Philp officers the Darwin wharf labourers were part of the White Australian ‘problem’, a phase which no longer referred to colour, but to the politics of militant unionism. Many of the unionists on the wharf were ‘coloured’, but what distinguished them from the ship’s ‘coolie’ crew was that they were both ‘coloured’ and union members, working for award rates.
An examination of the ethnic backgrounds of the waterside workers in 1937 reveals that those of British background were in the minority. Amongst those of European background there were Italians, Greeks, Dutch and Norwegians, while the majority of wharfies were categorised as ‘half-caste’. This term was used for anyone who was deemed to be of mixed ‘racial’ background. Amongst the watersiders these included Spanish-Filipinos, Chinese-Australians, Malay-Aboriginal, Irish-Aboriginal and so on. These men, like Arthur Tye, for example, who was of Chinese-Australian background qualified for union membership under the ‘mixed parentage’ clause.[63] Waterside worker Johnny Ah Mat, for example, was the son of a Malay pearl-diver and a Torres Strait Islander woman.[64] The Cubillo brothers were the children of a Filipino pearl diver and their mother was of Scottish-Aboriginal descent.[65] In both these cases their local credentials on the waterfront were strong given their connections with ex-pearlers, many of whom now owned private fishing and trading luggers.
The NAWU organised the casual labourers into three semi-permanent gangs.[66] There was no ‘racial’ division within the gangs - each had a mixture of workers. There is no evidence to suggest that ‘half-caste’ workers were forced to take on the more physically taxing jobs such as working in the ship’s hold, nor that they could not hold positions of seniority.[67] Certainly, the union did not judge its workers according to ‘racial’ stereotypes. There were over one hundred unemployed men in Darwin in 1937. On the list of Relief Workers each worker was judged by the union as fair, good or poor, but there was no correlation between this assessment and the worker’s ‘race’. Furthermore, there were capable white workers on the unemployed list while ‘coloured’ workers remained employed as waterside workers. This suggests that white workers were not given preferential treatment.[68]
There is no doubt that work on the wharf was arduous. Wharfies were sometimes required to work shifts exceeding 30 hours and the tropical heat made temperatures in the hold almost unbearable. The waterside section continued to be notorious for its repeated strikes. The results of strong unionism showed in wage rates. Wharfies received 4/- per hour for normal hours, 6/- per hour after 5 p.m. and 8/- after midnight. According to the 1937 Payne and Fletcher Report this was almost double the rates paid in Brisbane and was higher than any other tropical port.[69]
It was not until the late 1930s that ‘full-blood’ Chinese were finally allowed to join the NAWU and so take up employment on the wharf. With the destruction of many records from this period it is difficult to ascertain precisely when the bar was removed, but some time after 1936 all Australian-born workers were allowed membership in the NAWU. In January 1940 there were several Chinese members in the NAWU, working as waterside workers, including C. Yuen, W. Jan, S. Jan, Peter Ng.[70] The fact that these men were Australian-born separated them in the eyes of the law and the union from those indents employed in the pearling industry who were all ‘aliens’. It had taken almost three decades for labour movement prejudices against Asian workers to be gradually whittled away so that Asians could once again work on the wharf, but the change in attitudes had been limited to those Asians who could now be defined as Australian.
The contrast between the employment of Asian workers in the pearling industry as opposed to their employment on the wharf is striking. In both cases there had been a strong movement to exclude Asian workers so as to uphold the principles of White Australia. In the case of the pearling industry, the pearling masters were able to lobby for an exemption which was granted primarily for economic reasons. The fact that the Federal Government allowed the employment of Asian indents to continue right up until World War Two did not indicate any lessening of White Australian prejudice, but rather a willingness to continue using colonial-style labour policies in which ‘coloured’ workers were regarded as cheap and expendable. In the case of the waterside workers the strength of the union movement outweighed any protests made by shipping companies or the Asian workers themselves. In this case economic considerations were ignored. The stevedoring industry became an ‘Australian’ industry and those engaged in it, including those of Asian descent, were seen to be upholding the egalitarian ethos of the White Australia policy.
[1] Julia Martinez has recently completed a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Wollongong on Aboriginal and Asian labour in northern Australia.
[2] Sawyer, Australian Federal Politics, p. 92.
[3] ‘Commonwealth policy on the Northern Territory’, 1 January 1911, Fisher Papers, MS 2919/3/462, NLA.
[4] Census figures for Darwin, 1911, A 1/ 1 11 / 1619 1, AA ACT.
[5] Lorraine Philipps, ‘Plenty More Little Brown Man! Pearlshelling and White Australia in Queensland 1901-1918’, in E. L. Wheelwright and K. Buckley (eds.), Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism, Volume 4, Australia & New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1980, p. 58.
[6] Lenore Layman, ‘“To Keep up the Australian Standard”: Regulating contract labour migration, 1901-50’, Labour History, no. 70, May 1996, p. 41; Andrew Markus, Australian Race Relations, 1788-1993, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1994, p. 124.
[7] Philipps, op. cit, pp. 73-5.
[8] Bamford, Final Report, 1916, cited in Regina Ganter, The Pearl-Shellers of Torres Strait, Resource Use, Development and Decline, 1860s-1960s, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1994, p. 114; See also, ‘Pearling Conditions’, A1/15 1914/12612, National Archives of Australia ACT (AA ACT)
[9] Bach cited in Ganter, op. cit., p. 115.
[10] Philipps, op. cit., p. 62.
[11] ibid., p. 73.
[12] ‘White Divers a failure’, Northern Territory Times, 20 April 1916.
[13] Ganter, op. cit., p. 115; Phillips, op. cit., pp. 62 and 64.
[14] M. Stanley, Inspector of Fisheries and Chief Pearling Inspector, Report on the Administration of the Northern Territory for the year ended 30th of July 1932, CPP, 1932.
[15] Douglas Lockwood, The Front Door, Darwin 1869-1969, Rigby, Adelaide, 1968, p. 126.
[16] ibid.
[17] ibid., p. 127.
[18] K. Nylander to Inspector of Police, 17 December 1938, F1 1938/726, National Archives of Australia, Northern Territory (AA NT).
[19] Returns of persons engaged in Pearling Industry, Years 1931-39, A433/1 49/2/6961, AA ACT.
[20] Report of the Administrator for the year 1911, p. 54.
[21] F. J. Quinlan to Sub-Collector of Customs, Darwin, 31 August 1925, A1/15 30/880, AA ACT.
[22] J. P. S. Bach, ‘The Pearlshelling Industry and the “White Australia” Policy’, Historical Studies, Volume 10 (38), May 1962, p. 212.
[23] Six were permitted if there were two divers. Instructions Regarding Employment of coloured indentured labour in the Pearling Industry, 1925, A1/15 30/880, AA ACT.
[24] Return of persons engaged in the Pearling Industry for the Half-Year ended 30/6/36. A433/1 49/2/6961, National Archives of Australia, ACT. The pearlers involved were Clark, Kepert, Edwards, Carpenter, Muramatsu, Gregory, and Foxton & Cobb.
[25] Exports for Port Darwin, Report of the Administrator for the Northern Territory, Year Ended 30 June 1936, Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers, 1936.
[26] CPD, 3rd Parliament, 3rd Session, Volume 47, 1908, p. 542.
[27] F. A. Alcorta, ‘The Origins of Trade Unionism in the Northern Territory’, Labour History, no. 43, November 1982, pp. 32-5.
[28] Chinese business community of Darwin to J. Thomas, Minister for External Affairs, 7 May 1912, A1/1 1912/10547, AA ACT.
[29] ‘Workers’ Union’, Northern Territory Times, 22 March 1912, W. H. J. Pennell was the Secretary of the AW.A.
[30] ‘Darwin Labour Troubles’, Northern Territory Times, 29 March 1912. Unionists Bournes, Lee, Pennell, Presley and Reardon had asked for rates of 2 shillings per hour, and 3 and 4 shilling for overtime.
[31] Northern Territory Times, 22 May 1913.
[32] J. Knight and R. S. Browne, ‘The Comic Opera Strike’, Brisbane Courier, 8 May 1913.
[33] Brisbane Courier, 8 May 1913; Tom Barker on 1913 strike, Northern Territory Times, 11 November 1915.
[34] Written 17 July 1913, Northern Territory Times, 21 August 1913.
[35] Official Report of the 13th Annual Convention, January 1916, p. 60, AWU Deposit, E 154/17, NBAC, ANU.
[36] Annual Convention, 1914, p. 35, AWU Papers, NBAC, ANU.
[37] Official Report of Amalgamation Conference, January 6-15, p. 25, E154/15/3; 13th Annual Convention, January 1916, p. 60, E154/17; Annual Convention, 1928, p.49, E154/17, AWU Deposit, NBAC, ANU.
[38] Membership lists for QLD and Darwin District, 1914-15. There were 64 members in Darwin itself, E154/52, AWU Deposit, NBAC, ANU.
[39] Northern Territory Times, 24 April, 18 June 1914.
[40] Northern Territory, Annual Report for the Year 1914-15, p. 14, DU 392, North Australia Research Unit Library (NARU), Darwin.
[41] Frank Alcorta, Darwin Rebellion 1911-1919, Darwin, NT History Unit, 1984, p. 106.
[42] Northern Territory Annual Report, 1914-15, p. 14.
[43] Annual Report, 1914-15, p. 15.
[44] Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, p. 90.
[45] Northern Territory Times, 3 June, 2 September 1915. See retrospective account by ‘One who knows’, Northern Territory Times, 8 July 1920.
[46] Northern Territory Times, 11 November 1915.
[47] Northern Territory Times, 2 September 1915
[48] Northern Territory Times, 16 March 1916.
[49] AWU Annual Convention, 1917, p.70, AWU Deposit, E 154/17, NBAC, ANU.
[50] Smith, Acting Administrator, Annual Report of the Northern Territory, 1920, p. 4, 17, CPP, 1920.
[51] W. H. Grant on behalf of Northern Agency Ltd., Northern Standard, 6 October 1921.
[52] AATU Conference, June 1921, p. 25.
[53] ‘The One Big Union has a Funeral’, extract from Bulletin, Northern Territory Times, 4 March 1922.
[54] H. Fisher approached the AWU. AWU Official Report of the 36th Annual Convention, NSW, January 1922, pp. 83-4, NBAC, ANU; Northern Standard, 27 June 1922.
[55] The government reports referred to them as the new ‘loyalist’ union. A 106, G 1923/1403, AA ACT.
[56] Evans, The Red Flag Riots, p. 46.
[57] Alan Powell, Far Country, A Short History of the Northern Territory, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1982, p. 186.
[58] Argus, Melbourne, 28 November 1927 reprinted in the Northern Standard, 13 January 1928.
[59] McDonald, ‘Indentured Labor in Darwin, White Australian Policy Flouted’, Northern Standard, 24 January 1936; ‘Union Notes’, Northern Standard, 28 February 1936.
[60] Northern Standard, 27 October 1936; Bulletin, 21 October 1936.
[61] Abbott to the Department of the Interior, 10 November 1937, F1 1939/68, AA NT.
[62] ‘Darwin News in Southern Newspapers’, Northern Standard, 10 March 1939.
[63] R. H. Weddell to Department of the Interior, 10 December 1934, 654/1, 40/1/2189, AA ACT.
[64] Interview by author with Frank Ah Mat, Darwin, 13 June 1997.
[65] Inez Cubillo Carter, ‘Cubillo, Delphin Antonio’, in D. Carment and B. James (eds.), Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography, Volume Two, NTU Press, Darwin, 1992, pp. 43-4.
[66] There were approximately 45 men on the wharf and 18 in the Sorting Shed, Letter to the Department of the Interior, 1937, F1 1937/264, AA NT.
[67] As for example Johnny Ah Mat. Northern Standard, 8 September 1936, listing members of no. 2 Gang.
[68] Relief Workers List, Darwin, 1937, F1 1938/890, AA NT.
[69] Payne and Fletcher, ‘Report into Land and Land Industries of the Northern Territory of Australia’, October 1937, in Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers, 1937, pp. 78-82.
[70] ‘Carry on Executive, Reply to the Disgruntled Few’, Northern Standard, 9 January 1940.
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