cmap. Iv] IMMIGRATION OF COLOURED RACES 1085 
in terms forbidden, on the ground of colour only. His 
Majesty’s Government have shown every sympathy with the 
efforts of the people of Australia to deal with the problem 
of immigration, but they have always objected, both as 
regards aliens and as regards British subjects, to specific 
legislative discrimination in favour of, or against, race and 
colour, and that objection applies with even greater force 
to the present case, in which the question is not of the 
rights of the white population of Australia as against an 
influx of foreign immigrants, but merely of the employment 
of His Majesty’s Indian subjects on a contract to be mainly 
performed in tropical or sub-tropical waters. 
Even if the service were one upon which His Majesty’s 
[ndian subjects had not hitherto been employed, it would 
destroy the faith of the people of India in the sanctity of the 
obligations undertaken towards them by the Crown if the 
Imperial Government should become in any degree whatever 
parties to a policy of excluding them from it solely on the 
ground of colour. But where they have already been em- 
ployed in the service for a long period of years, to proscribe 
them from it now would be to produce justifiable discontent 
among a large portion of His Majesty’s subjects. His 
Majesty's Government deeply regret that their feeling of 
obligation in this matter is not shared by the Parliament 
of the Commonwealth, and that in regard to a matter which 
cannot affect the conditions of employment in Australia, and 
in no way affects that purity of race which the people of 
Australia justly value, they should have considered it 
desirable to dissociate themselves so completely from the 
obligations and policy of the Empire. 
Similarly in 1906 the reserved Bill of the Commonwealth 
Parliament restricted the preference to British goods to 
such as were imported in British ships manned exclusively 
by white labour. But the Bill never received the royal 
assent because it infringed in its restrictions to British ships 
the principle of several treaties of commerce, and thus the 
question of white labour did not require decision.! But the 
temporary visits of merchants, students, and distinguished 
Cf. Harrison Moore, Commonwealth of Australia,’ p. 110, n.; Common- 
wealth Parl, Pap., 1907, No. 3; Debates, 1906, pp. 3709-13, 3760-91, 
3866-965, 5051-7, 5288-346, 6140-75, 6370-9, 6393-402, 6408 seq. The 
Austro-Hungarian Treaty, and probably the Russian Treaty, would have 
run counter to this provision. But see also Parl. Pap., Cd. 3523, p. 315.