Now what do these two world-sundered cases mean? They mean, as an English writer justly remarks, "that under the British flag Mauritius has become an outpost of Asia, just as Hawaii is another such and under the Stars and Stripes."[169] And, of course, there is Natal, already mentioned, which, at the moment when the recent South African Exclusion Act stayed the Hindu tide, had not only been partially transformed into an Asiatic land, but was fast becoming a centre of Asiatic radiation all over South Africa. With such grim warnings before their eyes, it is not strange that the lusty young Anglo-Saxon communities bordering the Pacific--Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia, and our own "coast"--have one and all set their faces like flint against the Oriental and have emblazoned across their portals the legend: "All White." Nothing is more striking than the instinctive and instantaneous solidarity which binds together Australians and Afrikanders, Californians and Canadians, into a "sacred union" at the mere whisper of Asiatic immigration. Everywhere the slogan is the same. "The 'White Australia' idea," cries an antipodean writer, "is not a political theory. It is a gospel. It counts for more than religion; for more than flag, because the flag waves over all kinds of races; for more than the empire, for the empire is mostly black, or brown or yellow; is largely heathen, largely polygamous, partly cannibal. In fact, the White Australia doctrine is based on the necessity for choosing between national existence and national suicide."[170] "White Australia!" writes another Australian in similar vein. "Australians of all classes and political affiliations regard the policy much as Americans regard the Constitution. It is their most articulate article of faith. The reason is not far to seek.... Australian civilization is little more than a partial fringe round the continental coastline of 12,210 miles. The coast and its hinterlands are settled and developed, although not completely for the entire circumference; in the centre of the country lie the apparently illimitable wastes of the Never-Never Land, occupied entirely by scrub, snakes, sand, and blackfellows. The almost manless regions of the island-continent are a terrible menace. It is impossible to police at all adequately such an enormous area. And the peoples of Asia, beating at the bars that confine them, rousing at last from their age-long slumber, are chafing at the restraints imposed upon their free entry into and settlement of such uninhabited, undeveloped lands."[171]