Colonial, Refugee and Allied Civilians after the First World War

Immigration Restriction and Mass Repatriation

Jacqueline Jenkinson

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367085841
• eBook ISBN: 9781000050790
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica nell'arte e nelle discipline umanistiche

Following the First World War and in actions that challenged Britain's reputation as a liberal democracy, various government departments implemented policies of mass repatriation from Britain of populations of colonial and friendly migrants and refugees. Many of those repatriated had played a significant part in the war effort and had given valuable service in the combat zones and on the home front: serving in the armed forces, in labour battalions and employed in key wartime industries, such as munitions work, the merchant navy and wartime construction. This book sets out to uncover why central government decided to implement a policy of repatriation of "friendly" peoples after the war. It also explores the imposition of wartime and post-war legal restrictions on these groups as part of a major shift in policy towards reducing the settlement and limiting the employment of overseas populations in Britain.

1 The arrival of colonial and friendly migrants and refugees and their wartime employment

Introduction

This chapter opens with a brief overview of the arrival patterns of the case study groups of colonial and friendly migrants and refugees considered in this investigation of wartime and immediate post-war government policy limiting immigrant settlement and actions in Britain. Settlement patterns were dictated by a range of causal factors including economic push and pull determinants, the seeking of refuge and transport improvements. Following consideration of the arrival patterns of the various case study groups, the chapter will move on to discuss the employment roles assigned to each group in the First World War, as they were utilised as a key additional wartime workforce.

During the war, colonial workers (black African and Caribbean, Arab, and Chinese) were used to fill gaps in the labour market caused by the engagement of locally born white Britons on military service and the release of enemy overseas workers from their contracts. Wartime arrivals augmented those colonial workers long-term settled in Britain. Additionally, thousands of Russian subjects in Britain were employed on government contracts, particularly in uniform making, and in heavy industry, predominantly mining, initially as local British males voluntarily joined the armed forces and from spring 1916 were being conscripted into the military. Meanwhile, within days of the spike in Belgian refugee arrivals in October 1914 plans were laid by the Local Government Board for their smooth integration into the workforce.¹ Concern about Belgian refugee workers being used to undercut native rates of pay in the early months of the war led to a government policy of employing Belgian refugees via labour exchanges and at identical rates to local workers following implementation of the report recommendations of the speedily convened Hatch committee in early 1915. While these employment initiatives addressed the wartime needs of government, they did not pass without comment among local populations and trade unions. Local responses to the question of employment, and the related issue of military service among “friendly aliens,” will be discussed in Chapter 2.

Although thousands of colonial and friendly overseas nationals were welcomed into labour-starved industry during the First World War, people from these areas had been living and working in Britain for many decades. Other longer term settlers included Russian subjects who began to arrive in Britain in the 1880s. They had often come as refugees from religious and political persecution and by 1914 had become permanent settlers in Britain. The exception to this pattern of wartime arrivals augmenting an existing colonial population and long-term settlers was, of course, Belgian refugees. However, the quarter of a million Belgian refugees who came to Britain in the First World War were fairly quickly regarded as a ready source of both skilled and unskilled labour and were employed in large numbers, often in munitions works. For example, a community of Belgian exile munitions workers and their families were settled in a specially constructed village in Birtley, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne.²

While the classic Marxist model of these groups being exploited as a reserve army of labour is a useful starting point in understanding their position in the British economy, it is not a complete explanation of the process of the movement of the various case study groups to Britain.³ Clearly many migrants came to Britain for their own individual reasons, and many possessed skills and qualifications that allowed them opportunities to play an influential role in their local economies and within British society. Traditional “push–pull” theories used by some historians to explain the basics of the migration process also played a role in the movement of the various groups discussed in this book.⁴ General “push” factors included demographic growth, low living standards, lack of economic opportunities and religious and political repression. Among the “pull factors” drawing people from these groups toward Britain were demand for labour, religious and political freedom, and generally favourable economic opportunities. Pollins, for example, identified the attractions of a free society and expanding economy of Britain, alongside poor economic conditions at home as push–pull factors in eastern European Jewish movement in the period 1880–1914.⁵

The “push–pull” theory goes some way to help explain the decisions taken by people to leave one country and settle in another; however, Watson, among others, in his study of twentieth century British migrants and minorities has indicated that push–pull determinants provide too simplistic a view on population movement.⁶ In Watson’s view, the push–pull theory treats migrants not as individuals with free will, but as unthinking beings reacting en masse to forces beyond their control. Individual histories of migrant communities show multiple reasons for migration beyond simple push–pull determinism. Individual choice and longer-term factors such as gradual erosion of land quality and rising expectations brought on by improved educational opportunities could also play a part in the migration process.

Other factors behind population migration include transport developments. At the beginning of the twentieth century, immigration to Britain was facilitated by the reduction in transport costs between Britain and the United States, which attracted eastern European migrants to Britain as part of the process of trans-migration. Furthermore “fare wars” between big shipping companies affected ticket prices and numbers of travellers. For example, between the years 1902 and 1904, the third-class fare from Britain to the United States of America varied from £6.10s to £2, with an average fare of £5. Often it was cheaper to cross mainland Europe and travel to the United States via Britain, rather than leave from a German port such as Hamburg. Aside from trans-migrants taking advantage of cheaper fares, other travellers became temporary sojourners staying with family and friends and working to raise sufficient funds to pay the transatlantic fare.⁷ Not all of these new arrivals continued their journey on to the United States in the short or longer term, with many making Britain their permanent residence. This fare reduction for British ships helps explain the rise in the number of eastern European migrants and “trans-migrants” arriving in Britain’s ports in the early years of the twentieth century. Adopting the phrase coined by Panikos Panayi, the introduction of cheap, regular travel was one of a range of “enabling factors,” which encouraged the immigration process.⁸

Escape from the threat of violent military occupation was another specific motivating factor enabling increased population movement into Britain during the First World War as around 250,000 Belgian refugees came to Britain fleeing the mass violence of the German occupation. This was, of course, part of a wider movement of peoples. Kushner and Knox noted that the war and its aftermath had created millions of refugees and displaced peoples, reaching an estimated 9.5 million people, by the mid 1920s.⁹

Imperial conquest forged or deepened links between European countries and those in Africa and the Caribbean in particular. Britain’s imperial connections help explain the arrival of migrants from Africa and the Caribbean. Some of these colonial links went back centuries. For example, there was a tradition of Kru seafarers coming from Sierra Leone to work out of British ports, a process stretching from the eighteenth century down to the mid-twentieth century.¹⁰ Such “cultural capital” could be identified as another motivating factor behind migration. These prior links help underline the inter-connectedness of motivations within the immigration process.

Britain as a Western liberal democracy was portrayed as a haven for people from across the globe who had to flee their own homes and countries to escape from wars, political or religious persecution, and natural disasters. The well-established idea of Britain’s liberal traditions towards refugees was noted by renowned educator and social commentator, Samuel Smiles. In 1867, he described Britain as “the world’s asylum, the refuge of the persecuted of all lands … one of the most composite populations found in the world.”¹¹ William Cunningham, author of one of the earliest modern studies of immigration to Britain in 1897, perpetuated this image. Cunningham cited the supporters of the 1824 Aliens Bill who “… expressed satisfaction that this country was still an asylum …” before himself commenting: “it is clear that the English sympathy for fugitive strangers had come to be deeply rooted and widely spread.”¹² Cesarani has supported the view that mid-nineteenth century Britain was a “haven for political refugees and economic migrants.” However, he suggested the welcome received was conditional since it was based on small numbers which prevented their settlement becoming a matter of debate or public concern, before adding although there were no anti-alien movements, “all the same they were not well-liked.”¹³ This is exemplified in the layered response of Cunningham who at the same time as upholding the traditions of asylum in general, expressed his personal view of migrants in the late-nineteenth century in hostile and anti-Semitic terms. Cunningham noted that he was writing at a time, the 1890s, when

the alien question has once again become more prominent in the Metropolis … it is at least arguable that we have already received most of the boons which alien influence has been able to confer upon us … At all events we have not much to gain from imitating the institutions of the Polish Jews.¹⁴

It is clear that the nineteenth century discourse portraying Britain as a haven for refugees was problematic. It was further undermined by the actions of various British early-twentieth century governments in closing the door and undermining the right of entry for those seeking asylum. Pollins describ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. The arrival of colonial and friendly migrants and refugees and their wartime employment
• 2. Host responses to colonial and friendly migrants and refugees
• 3. Aliens legislation during and after the war
• 4. The wartime development of government repatriation policy
• 5. The implementation of mass repatriation
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index