London, 21 November 1966
Confidential
Entry into Britain
Sir A. Downer called to see me this afternoon as he put it, to have an informal talk following his reference to Australian difficulties in entering this country with the Secretary of State1 on Armistice Sunday.
I listened to a very involved, emotional, repetitive harangue. The general gist was that we were running a grave danger of alienating Australia, that there were already a number of influences affecting the warm relations between our two countries—the Common Market, exchange control, President Johnson’s visit, etc., etc.—that many Australians still regarded Britain as home and expected to receive a friendly welcome and that, if present causes for complaint continued, we should reach ‘the open sea’ and even the position of the Queen would be gravely affected.
Coming down from these lofty heights the High Commissioner instanced a number of individual cases that were known to him personally where Australians entering this country had either been refused permission, had been granted permission for a derisorily short period, or had been treated with discourtesy or even rudeness. Sir A. Downer then said that he would like to put forward four suggestions which he hoped would be considered:–
(i) In the first place it seemed to him that decisions taken by immigration officers were unduly arbitrary—in some cases permission to stay was granted for six, in others for three and in others for only two months. It would be better if no invidious distinctions were made, particularly when the reasons were not understood.
(ii) It would be helpful if a period of twelve months could normally be regarded as the period of stay for visitors from Australia. Australia was a long way away and when they made a visit to this country a number of Australians wished to stay longer than six months as, indeed, numbers of them had always done in the past. He thought that no-one would object if, at the end of twelve months, they were required to apply to the Home Office for an extension of their permit.
(iii) He suggested that the British High Commissioner in Australia should give more publicity to the present requirements, so that there was no misunderstanding in Australia. If the position were better understood before they left, there would be less cause for complaint on arrival. He also hoped that the High Commissioner might be able to do something to soothe troubled feelings and explain our attitude.
(iv) He asked that the Commonwealth Secretary and the Home Secretary should consider whether instructions could be given to immigration officers to behave with greater courtesy.
I was not given very long to reply to this tirade, but I told the High Commissioner that in principle I had a very great sympathy with his request. Indeed, I mentioned that I had already raised the general question inside this Office. 2 I accepted that if the present complaints were not met we should increase our difficulties with Australia which, of course, none of us wanted to do. I suggested that the problem was largely a psychological one. I went on to explain the reasons for the Commonwealth Immigrants’ Act and to refer to the clear statements by both parties that it should be exercised without discrimination. I admitted that this put us in a false position and said that, as he knew, we had of course been as lenient as possible to migrants from Australia.
I nevertheless went on to make the following points:–
(i) For political reasons, which the High Commissioner said he fully understood, we must be seen to be administering the Act in a non-discriminatory fashion.
(ii) For this reason some of the regulations had recently, perhaps, been tightened up.
(iii) It was, however, perfectly proper to ask simple questions of visitors to any country: this happened in most countries in the world and I had no doubt that on occasion Australian immigration officers (who, in my own experience, were very efficient to the point of my being vaccinated at 3 a.m. on arrival at Darwin) were no exception.
(iv) I did not believe there was any general discourtesy, but that of course all of us had complaints from time to time against individuals.
(v) One explanation was that arrivals by aircraft at London Airport had to be disposed of at the rate of 100 visitors on hour, and this meant that if the immigration officer was not to keep other passengers waiting, he could not afford the time to go into lengthy explanation with each one.
(vi) I also made the point that publicity about all this could only do Australia harm and made more difficult the operation of any informal arrangements which were not strictly comparable to the regulations applied to immigrants from new Commonwealth countries.
(vii) Finally I said that it seemed strange to me that all the complaints came from Australia and that I had never heard of any from either Canada or New Zealand, though there was a substantial number of visitors from both these countries.
Nevertheless I told the High Commissioner that I would report to the Secretary of State, as he had requested, and that I would have the questions which he had raised looked into.
In conclusion the High Commissioner handed the attached example of an Australian passport and drew attention to the emotive significance of the crown appearing on the front page (apparently he had been responsible for this when he was a Minister and the Queen’s approval had been obtained), and to the wording ‘Australia. British Passport’.
1 Herbert Bowden, Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs, 1966–67.
2 Document 317.
[UKNA: DO 1751163]