"Italian immigration became the largest non-British movement after the entry of Melanesians and Asians was stopped by the new federal government in 1902. This put Italians at the bottom of the Australian 'racial totem pole', just above other Southern Europeans and Aborigines. The volume of arrivals, the proportion of settlers in the total population of Australia, and the size of Italian agglomerated settlements were trivial by international standards. Yet the establishment of fifty Italian households within a radius of five miles (8 km) or the employment of twenty Italians on a job were cause for alarm in Australian eyes, The 'inferiority' of Italians was generally seen in racist terms as well as specifically in terms of their threatening to compete with labour of British stock because of their 'primitive' way of life".