1078 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [PART V
legislated and imposed a poll-tax of £100, and allowed only
one Chinese to three hundred tons, and, while the Bill was
still én posse, there was held a conference of all the states in
Sydney in June 1888. It was agreed then to adopt the
principle of no poll-tax and one Chinese to every five hundred
tons,?2 and to penalize transit across the Colonial borders.
The New South Wales Government promised to amend their
Act if two other Colonies adopted the legislation approved
by the Conference, and on this understanding the Bill was
allowed to become law. The result was that Victoria and
South Australia legislated in 1888 on the lines of the agree-
ment ; Western Australia followed suit in 1889 ; Queensland
legislated in 1888, going beyond the lines of the Conference
by increasing the penalties and diminishing the exemptions ;
this Bill was only allowed in 1889 (No. 22), after having been
reserved, on a promise of amendment, and an amending Bill
was passed in 1890 (No. 29), reserved, and assented to, but
further amendments were vainly asked for by the Secretary
of State. New Zealand in 1888 passed an Act (No. 34)
which increased the restrictions and the penalties.
In 1893 Western Australia, now a self-governing Colony,
threw in its lot with the others and prohibited the importation
of Chinese under the labour law of 1884, but this was modified
in 1897 (No. 27) by permitting such importation of indentured
labour north of the 27° south latitude, and restricting the
number to one for five hundred tons. New Zealand passed
in 1896 another Act (No. 19) against Chinese, which limited
the number imported to one for two hundred tons and in-
creased the poll-tax to £100. In 1907 an Act (No. 79) was
passed requiring any Chinese immigrant to be able to read
a printed passage of not less than a hundred words of English,
! Parl. Pap., C. 5448, pp. 35 seq. Cf. also Dilke, Problems of Greater
Britain, i. 146, 147 ; Parkes, Fifty Years of Australian History, ii. 204-31.
* The Imperial Government was to ask the Chinese Government to
arrange for restriction of the entry of Chinese, and a joint representation
for this end was agreed on. The Chinese exclusion movement in America
had just then come to its height, and influenced the Colonies in their
views of action; a treaty of March 1888 had agreed to restriction, but
failed to become law.
