WHITE AUSTRALIA
SIR,—Donald Horne's reasonably fair analysis of Australia is not quite accurate on two counts.
There is some political rethinking of the White Australia policy and much of it has been started by very unmonastic academics, ranging from his- torians to doctors.
Just published in Australia and shortly to appear in the UK is immigration.- Control or Colour Bar? which proposes that the whole of Australia's migra- tion programme should be controlled through bilateral agreements (as exist already between Australia and many European countries) and that the migrant intake should be governed by economic and social criteria rather than, as at present, solely by skin colour. An earlier publication by the same group of people gave some of the stimulus both to Student Action, which demonstrated at party meetings before the last Federal election ('Watch that tan—they might deport you' appeared on, one of Melbourne's main beaches) and also to Associa- tions for Immigration Reform which now exist in several States.
Australian politicians are certainly somewhat behind the public on this question. Although public opinion polls over the last few years show a con- sistent swing in favour of modification of the White Australia policy, until now an absolute majority are in favour, perhaps only 20 per cent. of politicians are with the public on this, and only a handful dare to say so. But since the Preservation of a White Australia is still in the Labour Party's platform; and Prime Minister Menzies almost sup- ports apartheid, this lack of political statement is not surprising. J. PETER WHITE St. John's College, Cambridge
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