A Short History of Australia by Ernest Scott

A 'Monroe doctrine' for the Pacific--French annexation of New Caledonia--The New Hebrides--New Guinea--Captain Morseby's discoveries-- The colonies and New Guinea--Queensland's awakened interest--Gold discoveries--German intentions--McIlwraith orders annexation of New Guinea--Action disavowed by British Government--Strong feeling in Australia--German annexations--Lord Granville's surprise--Kanaka labour--'Blackbirding'--Queensland regulates the labour traffic.

Prevost-Paradol, a French author who wrote an excellent book on the colonies of his country in 1868, predicted that 'some day a new Monroe Doctrine would prevent old Europe, in the name of the United States of Australia, from setting foot upon a single isle of the Pacific.' A policy so exclusive has never been promulgated, though a convention of all the Australian colonies which met at Sydney in 1883 did enter its protest against any foreign power being permitted to acquire fresh territory in the Pacific south of the Equator. But until the achievement of federation the people of Australia were too much immersed in their own particularist affairs to pay attention to, or even to take the trouble to understand, what their future interests might be in the many groups of islands powdered over the face of the Pacific. Only a suddenly stimulated sense of danger warned them, almost at the last moment, to reach out a hand towards New Guinea, lying close to their doors; and their concern for other parts of the Pacific has only been aroused when they have been awakened to its imminence by some striking circumstance.