"The arrival of these people in large numbers has created a problem of the first magnitude. We are guarding the purity of our race and the standard of our labor. If we allow this uncontrolled influx from Asia, our democratic institutions will be undermined, and the wages of our working classes will be depressed. Therefore, this Parliament must establish strict literacy tests in European languages to restrict entry, ensuring that our nation remains unified in culture and heritage."
—Excerpt from a speech in the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1901
Which of the following developments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the policy proposed in the speech most directly reacting to?
- AThe direct annexation of East and South Asian territories by European empires, which forced displaced colonial subjects to resettle in Oceania.
- BThe global acceptance of Social Darwinism as a scientifically valid theory of natural selection that dictated voluntary migration patterns.
- The growing migration of Asian laborers to settler societies in search of employment, which prompted state authorities to enact exclusionary laws.Cevap
- DThe redirection of the transatlantic slave trade to Oceania to meet the agricultural labor demands of newly independent Pacific states.
Cevap
The correct answer is the growing migration of Asian laborers to settler societies in search of employment, which prompted state authorities to enact exclusionary laws.
The correct explanation is that the speech reflects the creation of the White Australia Policy (Immigration Restriction Act of 1901). As global migration accelerated during the industrial era, millions of Asian workers migrated to settler societies such as Australia, Canada, and the United States to work in mining, agriculture, and construction. In response to this influx, host governments enacted discriminatory state regulations to protect local wages and enforce racial hierarchies.
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Anahtar Kavram
State regulation of global migration in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.