Canberra, 20 November 1962
On 26th October we received a copy of a letter addressed on 19th October to the Home Secretary by Sir Eric Harrison, 1 in which Sir Eric asked for an assurance that the provisions of the Commonwealth Immigrants’ Act, 1962 will be applied against Australian citizens with some discretion in the future. After reading this letter, I wondered whether we were not putting our case a little too strongly. For instance, would we be prepared to give a similar assurance to that sought by Sir Eric if the British were to make similar representations on the operation of our own Immigration Act.
By and large, I believe that Australians wishing to enter Britain are being treated pretty fairly in terms of the British legislation. During the drafting stages of this legislation I had several talks with Norman Costar, and I believe that the British went a long way to meet our prospective difficulties by amendments to the legislation and instructions.
I note that two of the three cases mentioned by Sir Eric concern sailors, who are from their very calling something of a foot-loose body of men and were a source of trouble to the British authorities before the passage of the Commonwealth Immigrants’ Act.
On the other hand, you and Sir Eric are on the spot and may well have good reasons why you believe that particular individual cases should be taken up—perhaps to establish an administrative principle of some importance to us.
My suggestion is, however, that I believe the Commonwealth Immigrants’ Act is operating very lightly as far as we are concerned and that we should avoid doing anything unnecessary which might lose us the sympathy of the British.
1 Document 307.
[NAA: Al838, 1965/1487 PART 1]