Editing White Australia policy (section)

===Paris Peace Conference===
[[File:Keep Australia White.jpg|thumb|right|"Keep Australia White" poster used during the [[1917 Australian conscription referendum|1917 conscription referendum]]. The "No" campaign claimed that conscripted soldiers sent overseas would be replaced by non-white labour. ]]
At the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|1919 Paris Peace Conference]] following the [[First World War]], Japan sought to include a [[Racial Equality Proposal|racial equality clause]] in the [[Covenant of the League of Nations]]. Japanese policy reflected their desire to remove or to ease the immigration restrictions against Japanese (especially in the United States and Canada), which Japan regarded as a humiliation and affront to its prestige.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Best We Forget. The War for White Australia,1914–1918|last=Cochrane|first=Peter|publisher=TextPublishing|year=2018|location=Melbourne|pages=201–210}}</ref>

Australian Prime Minister [[Billy Hughes]] was already concerned by the prospect of Japanese expansion in the Pacific. Australia, Japan and New Zealand had seized the [[German colonial empire|Germany's Pacific territories]] in the early stages of the war and Hughes was concerned to retain [[German New Guinea]] as vital to the defence of Australia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ajrp.awm.gov.au/AJRP/remember.nsf/Web-Printer/D879E4837E327092CA256A99001B7456?OpenDocument|title=Remembering the war in New Guinea – Why were the Japanese were in New Guinea|website=ajrp.awm.gov.au|access-date=22 October 2017|archive-date=10 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110050620/http://ajrp.awm.gov.au/AJRP/remember.nsf/Web-Printer/D879E4837E327092CA256A99001B7456?OpenDocument|url-status=live}}</ref> The treaty ultimately granted Australia a League of Nations Mandate over German New Guinea and Japan to the [[South Seas Mandate]] immediately to its north – thus bringing Australian and Japanese territory to a shared border – a situation altered only by Japan's Second World War invasion of New Guinea.

Hughes vehemently opposed Japan's racial equality proposition. Hughes recognised that such a clause would be a threat to White Australia and made it clear to British prime minister [[David Lloyd George]] that he would leave the conference if the clause was adopted. Hughes wrote in 1919: "No Govt. could live for a day in Australia if it tempered with a White Australia".<ref name="MacMillan319">{{cite book|last=MacMillan|first=Margaret|author-link=Margaret MacMillan|title=Paris 1919: Six Months that changed the World|title-link=Peacemakers (book)|year=2002|publisher=Random House|location=New York|isbn=0-375-50826-0|page=319|chapter=Japan and Racial Equality}}</ref> Hughes wrote a note to Colonel [[Edward M. House]] of the American delegation: "It may be all right. But sooner than agree to it I would walk into the Seine-or the Folies Bergeres-with my clothes off".<ref name="MacMillan319"/> Hughes did offer the compromise that he would support the Racial Equality Clause provided that it did not affect immigration, an offer the Japanese rejected.<ref name="MacMillan319"/> When the proposal failed, Hughes reported in the Australian parliament:<blockquote>The White Australia is yours. You may do with it what you please, but at any rate, the soldiers have achieved the victory and my colleagues and I have brought that great principle back to you from the conference, as safe as it was on the day when it was first adopted.<ref name="australian_story">{{cite web
|url=http://www.abc.net.au:80/100years/EP2_3.htm
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170101071337/http://www.abc.net.au:80/100years/EP2_3.htm
|archive-date=1 January 2017
|date= 21 March 2001
|title=100 Years: The Australia Story. Episode 2: Rise and Fall of White Australia
|publisher =Australian Broadcasting Commission
|access-date =29 January 2007
}}</ref></blockquote>