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Western Australia As It Is Today, 1906
Book by Zunini, Leopoldo
263 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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January 12, 2023
This is a charming and interesting book but I never would have given it a glance had we not just returned from a lovely holiday in Western Australia (our first). I picked it up at a second hand stall and was treated to a fascinating slice of Australian history from an outsider perspective.
Leopoldo Zunini had recently been appointed as the Italian Vice-Consul to Western Australia. In late 1905 and for most of 1906 he headed a delegation to explore and then facilitate a migration scheme to settle Italian farmers in the state. Hosted by various individuals and committees appointed by the West Australian government, Zunini and three Italian farmer delegates were taken on an extensive tour of the farming districts in the state’s South West and also north of Perth as far as Geraldton. Zunini’s broader goal, necessary to realising his immediate objective, was to overcome the intense prejudice and xenophobia faced by non Anglo-Saxon migrants, Italians included.
From the generally positive tone of his diary it appears that this early step towards multiculturalism was going to work. Zunini and his companions were warmly received by their hosts and soon developed bonds of understanding and friendship as they wound their way around the state (usually by train, sometimes by horse and buggy, and occasionally by some rather perilous motor vehicles). Zunini’s friendly and humane nature no doubt contributed to this. Zunini was frequently taken aback by the generosity and enthusiasm of the farmers and property owners they stayed with. On one occasion he was quite overwhelmed by the reception following an impromptu speech he made at Northam. As the tour progressed the project seemed to grow in promise and government negotiations appeared to reflect this.
However, there was a less friendly side at work. Factions of the Labour Party, the popular press, and much of their readership, were intensely hostile to any hint of migrant workers flooding the market with cheap labour. For this reason Zunini had to underscore that Italian settlers would in no way compete with local labour and would only comprise self-employed farmers who would eventually contribute to the local economy and the development of the regions. However, strengthening this local fear of unfair competition was the entrenched racism and xenophobia of the day. The irony is that Zunini agreed in general with the White Australia Policy, complaining only that it included Italians who were unfairly placed on a rung with blacks and the Chinese.
Because of these views the mission ultimately failed and it would not be till after the Second World War that Australia would open its door to a significant non Anglo-Saxon presence. “It foundered” writes co-editor Melia “not because it was ill-conceived, but because it called for a world view of immigration which looked beyond narrow local interest and challenged the country’s entrenched traditions of racial and national superiority”.
I ended up skimming many parts of the book because the discussions about soil quality, climatic conditions and agricultural yield did not generally interest me. However, what I found fascinating was the outsider’s view of this newly federated country. Zunini’s comments on the egalitarian nature of Australian society, for example, were innocently observed and therefore quite free of national myth making. Many of his observations are delightful in their directness, be it the drinking habits of Australians, their social customs and outlook, or the bizarre forms of Australian fauna.
Two of Zunini’s observations are worth a longer comment. Zunini’s fleeting encounter with a group of Aboriginal people gives rise to reflections of which Melia provides a summary: “He was sympathetic towards the Aboriginals’ obvious distress, although he was a man of his time and viewed their plight in Darwinian terms, as very likely presaging their eventual extinction”. Zunini writes without irony that the Benedictine abbey in New Norcia was founded “to civilize the Aborigines” while also noting that “contact with Europeans, instead of educating and civilizing, has, as a rule, served only to make them more brutish”. In passing he refers to the Indigenous as “the ancient owners of Australia” yet, as was commonly assumed, he describes them as having “no fixed place of abode”. In short, any personal sympathy Zunini may have felt for Australia’s First Peoples was no more than an emotional veneer over deeply embedded assumptions about European supremacy and Whiteness as the benchmark of normality.
Also ‘normal’, inevitable and ultimately tragic were Zunini’s views on the environment (a term he does not use). He notes with wonder the profusion of the Western Australian bush and the extensive nature of its magnificent forests. These, however, would have to be cleared as quickly and efficiently as possible to open up tracts of suitable farming land for would be Italian settlers. Repeatedly he wrestles with the practical problem of how best to eliminate trees, be it by ringbarking, burning, extraction or exploding. Behind this immediate concern one senses a deeper agitation, that land not put to agricultural use remained unforgivably undeveloped and thus fundamentally ‘wasted’. On the one hand, Zunini’s views were less destructive than the early colonists whom he writes regarded trees as a natural enemy. He therefore confesses: “one feels a sense of dislike for a pygmy mankind which dares lay hand to things that, in the final analysis, are themselves living entities which enrich our world with their beauty and symmetry”. But this more sensitive and romantic view of nature quickly gives way to practical concerns: “Unfortunately, we do not live in a world of poetic idylls and clearing the bush is a necessity in Australia, covered as it is by an endless forest”. Ironically, it was the government of the day that recognised the economic potential of an underutilized timber industry, thus exchanging indiscriminate destruction for a more organised and profitable one.
Today it is troubling that so little of what remains of Western Australia’s native Jarrah still remains vulnerable. According to Wikipedia, less than 13% of Western Australia’s Jarrah forest ecoregion is protected, partly due to the resistance of large mining interests.
Leopoldo Zunini had recently been appointed as the Italian Vice-Consul to Western Australia. In late 1905 and for most of 1906 he headed a delegation to explore and then facilitate a migration scheme to settle Italian farmers in the state. Hosted by various individuals and committees appointed by the West Australian government, Zunini and three Italian farmer delegates were taken on an extensive tour of the farming districts in the state’s South West and also north of Perth as far as Geraldton. Zunini’s broader goal, necessary to realising his immediate objective, was to overcome the intense prejudice and xenophobia faced by non Anglo-Saxon migrants, Italians included.
From the generally positive tone of his diary it appears that this early step towards multiculturalism was going to work. Zunini and his companions were warmly received by their hosts and soon developed bonds of understanding and friendship as they wound their way around the state (usually by train, sometimes by horse and buggy, and occasionally by some rather perilous motor vehicles). Zunini’s friendly and humane nature no doubt contributed to this. Zunini was frequently taken aback by the generosity and enthusiasm of the farmers and property owners they stayed with. On one occasion he was quite overwhelmed by the reception following an impromptu speech he made at Northam. As the tour progressed the project seemed to grow in promise and government negotiations appeared to reflect this.
However, there was a less friendly side at work. Factions of the Labour Party, the popular press, and much of their readership, were intensely hostile to any hint of migrant workers flooding the market with cheap labour. For this reason Zunini had to underscore that Italian settlers would in no way compete with local labour and would only comprise self-employed farmers who would eventually contribute to the local economy and the development of the regions. However, strengthening this local fear of unfair competition was the entrenched racism and xenophobia of the day. The irony is that Zunini agreed in general with the White Australia Policy, complaining only that it included Italians who were unfairly placed on a rung with blacks and the Chinese.
Because of these views the mission ultimately failed and it would not be till after the Second World War that Australia would open its door to a significant non Anglo-Saxon presence. “It foundered” writes co-editor Melia “not because it was ill-conceived, but because it called for a world view of immigration which looked beyond narrow local interest and challenged the country’s entrenched traditions of racial and national superiority”.
I ended up skimming many parts of the book because the discussions about soil quality, climatic conditions and agricultural yield did not generally interest me. However, what I found fascinating was the outsider’s view of this newly federated country. Zunini’s comments on the egalitarian nature of Australian society, for example, were innocently observed and therefore quite free of national myth making. Many of his observations are delightful in their directness, be it the drinking habits of Australians, their social customs and outlook, or the bizarre forms of Australian fauna.
Two of Zunini’s observations are worth a longer comment. Zunini’s fleeting encounter with a group of Aboriginal people gives rise to reflections of which Melia provides a summary: “He was sympathetic towards the Aboriginals’ obvious distress, although he was a man of his time and viewed their plight in Darwinian terms, as very likely presaging their eventual extinction”. Zunini writes without irony that the Benedictine abbey in New Norcia was founded “to civilize the Aborigines” while also noting that “contact with Europeans, instead of educating and civilizing, has, as a rule, served only to make them more brutish”. In passing he refers to the Indigenous as “the ancient owners of Australia” yet, as was commonly assumed, he describes them as having “no fixed place of abode”. In short, any personal sympathy Zunini may have felt for Australia’s First Peoples was no more than an emotional veneer over deeply embedded assumptions about European supremacy and Whiteness as the benchmark of normality.
Also ‘normal’, inevitable and ultimately tragic were Zunini’s views on the environment (a term he does not use). He notes with wonder the profusion of the Western Australian bush and the extensive nature of its magnificent forests. These, however, would have to be cleared as quickly and efficiently as possible to open up tracts of suitable farming land for would be Italian settlers. Repeatedly he wrestles with the practical problem of how best to eliminate trees, be it by ringbarking, burning, extraction or exploding. Behind this immediate concern one senses a deeper agitation, that land not put to agricultural use remained unforgivably undeveloped and thus fundamentally ‘wasted’. On the one hand, Zunini’s views were less destructive than the early colonists whom he writes regarded trees as a natural enemy. He therefore confesses: “one feels a sense of dislike for a pygmy mankind which dares lay hand to things that, in the final analysis, are themselves living entities which enrich our world with their beauty and symmetry”. But this more sensitive and romantic view of nature quickly gives way to practical concerns: “Unfortunately, we do not live in a world of poetic idylls and clearing the bush is a necessity in Australia, covered as it is by an endless forest”. Ironically, it was the government of the day that recognised the economic potential of an underutilized timber industry, thus exchanging indiscriminate destruction for a more organised and profitable one.
Today it is troubling that so little of what remains of Western Australia’s native Jarrah still remains vulnerable. According to Wikipedia, less than 13% of Western Australia’s Jarrah forest ecoregion is protected, partly due to the resistance of large mining interests.
Displaying 1 of 1 review