Ethnic Labour and British Imperial Trade: A History of Ethnic Seafarers in the UK 0714641855, 9780714641850

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ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE: A HISTORY OF ETHNIC SEAFARERS IN THE UK

ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE: A HISTORY OF ETHNIC SEAFARERS IN THE UK

Edited by

DIANE FROST

First published 1995 in Great Britain by Frank Cass and Company Limited Published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OXl 4 4RN 52 VanderbiltAvenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint ofthe Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright© 1995 by Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress This group of studies first appeared in a Special Issue on 'Ethnic Labour and British Imperial Trade: A History of Ethnic Seafarers in the UK' of Immigrants & Minorities, Vol.13, Nos. 2 & 3 Typeset by Vitaset, Paddock Wood, Kent

ISBN 13: 978-0-7146-4185-0 (pbk)

Contents Diane Frost

1

Norma Myers

7

Racism, Work and Unemployment: West African Seamen in Liverpool 1880s-1960s

Diane Frost

22

The Role of Seamen's Agents in the Migration for Employment of Arab Seafarers in the Early Twentieth Century

Dick Lawless

34

Neil Evans

59

David Byrne

89

Tony Lane

104

Strikes! African Seamen, Elder Dempster and the Government, 1940-42 Marika Sherwood

130

Notes on Contributors

146

Introduction The Black Poor of London : Initiatives of Eastern Seamen in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Across the Universe : Racial Violence and the Post-War Crisis in Imperial Britain, 1919-25 Class, Race and Nation: The Politics of the 4 Arab Issue' in South Shields 1919-39 The Political Imperatives of Bureaucracy and Empire: The Case of the Coloured Alien Seamen Order, 1925

Introduction DIANE FROST The themes identified in these essays were essentially the result of a conference on 'Ethic Seafarers in the UK' held in Liverpool in December 1992.' The conference was initially organized in an attempt to bring together individual researchers working in this area, interested students, and, it was hoped, 'ethnic (ex) seamen' who, as the subjects of this conference, would have much to contribute in terms of first-hand experience. This latter objective proved least successful but, overall, the conference proceedings produced an exchange of ideas and information which proved very valuable to the participants and has culminated in the publication of a selection of the papers in this volume. The appearance of this collection of essays seems appropriate, given the neglected nature of the subject in traditional accounts of British labour history and in the more business-oriented versions of British maritime history. Their publication can only enrich and broaden our general understanding of the history of labour in Britain. Such papers also offer a contrast to traditional accounts of maritime history that have, on the whole, presented a 'Great Men' theory of history through their concentration on the role of shipowners, entrepreneurs and business class. There has also been the tendency to focus on economics and trade with little mention or acknowledgement of the labour power upon which this depended. This volume, then, is an attempt to uncover the experiences of ethnic maritime labour that was drawn from the far corners of Britain's empire and to assess their contribution to British imperial trade. Three themes will be highlighted. First, due recognition of the fact that ethnic labour, defined variously as 'British subjects', 'British protected persons' or, less flatteringly, 'Aliens', formed a significant part of Britain's maritime labour force needs to be emphasized. Issues of 'race' and ethnicity are important when examining British maritime labour history, not only in the post-war period, of which we know more, but also in the neglected pre-1945 years, to which the majority of these papers refer. A second theme is the significance of the pre-1945 ethnic/black presence The editors wishes to thank and acknowledge the Department of Economic & Social History, University of Liverpool and the Merseyside Maritime Museum for their generous support, as well as all those who participated in the conference and made it a successful and enjoyable occasion. Special thanks to Ken Lunn and Colin Holmes for supporting the publication of these papers.

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ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

in Britain. Well before the mass migration of New Commonwealth immigrants after the Second World War, an important (male) colonial presence, drawn from Britain's empire, was already visible in the port towns and cities of the United Kingdom. Whilst more research is certainly needed to uncover many aspects of this history, this volume makes a contribution to this process of identification.2 Finally, the essays highlight the still-vital issues of social class. The very nature of the work performed by these colonial subjects places them in an objective class position, that of workers or proletarians. Indeed, as some of the essays here hint, most of these labourers were literally proletarians in the making. Many entered waged employment on British and European ships with very little experience of capitalistic social relations, having come from predominantly rural-based peasant economies. For some, seafaring merely supplemented their agricultural earnings. In short, their experiences indicate the complexity of work culture and work patterns involved in the transition to maritime labour in these years and provide some challenging notions regarding the raising of particular forms of labour consciousness. Whilst the issues of ethnicity, 'race' and labour in Britain have been widely researched, largely as separate concepts but occasionally in a related way, the history of several diverse ethnic groups involved in a single industry has been rarely studied. This is perhaps to do with the complexity of embarking on such a project, especially where research on the migrants' original homeland is included. Thus, it is appropriate to draw together in a single collection a range of papers in this subject area. Taken together, they highlight the considerable degree of shared and similar experiences that ethnic seamen endured whilst working on British ships. Labour conditions, particularly wages, food and accommodation on ship, were invariably inferior to the conditions for European seamen (and these were often poor in their own right). All colonial seamen endured racial hostility and sometimes violence both on shore and at sea. Moreover, colonial seamen often experienced a precarious legal status whilst in the employ of British shipping companies. The study of ethnic labour in the pre-1945 period, whilst significant in itself, is also important in drawing attention to the long tradition of racism, ethnic intolerance and hostility that was not a new feature of postwar Britain, but had its roots much deeper in British society. The essays here show that the ethnic presence in Britain before the Second World War not only represented an imporant link with the post-war migrations but that both these periods were powerful legacies of empire, particularly the economic needs of empire. Increased demand for colonial maritime labour from the late nineteenth century onwards was inextricably linked

INTRODUCTION

3

to Britain's imperial expansion. Such labour was fully utilized in this lucrative trade that involved the exploitation of raw materials for export to the manufacturing areas of the United Kingdom. These were then exported from Britain to its empire as finished manufactured goods. What were the advantages of employing colonial labour? One obvious reason was that such labour was cheaper than white European workers. The former were paid a fraction of European wages. In addition, widespread racist assumptions fed a common mythology concerning both the physical virtues and weaknesses of such labour. Thus, Indian Lascar seamen, for example, were seen to be unfit to work in the colder climate of northern Europe. Later, with the advent of steam and its application to shipping, Lascars and West African Kru were considered to be more suitable to the hot-house conditions of engine-room work, especially in tropical climates, than their European counterparts. They began to be widely used in these particular jobs. But what about the seamen themselves? What were the advantages, if any, that seafearing work brought? It may have offered economic opportunities that were either limited or non-existent in their homelands. Poverty forced predominantly agricultural workers to seek seawork hundreds of miles away at the nearest port. This usually supplemented their farm earnings. The establishment of such migration over time, which often coincided with the agricultural cycle, led in some cases to the preponderance of certain groups or 'seafaring tribes'. This was true of the Kru in West Africa and of certain Arab groups in Yemen. Seafaring thus fulfilled a particular economic need of those involved. Colonial seamen shared much in common with their European counterparts; the work was dangerous, it involved long periods away from home, they shared poor working conditions, especially in terms of food and accommodation and the life these men led was harsh, many being vulnerable to the exploits of the crimp/boarding-house keeper. Colonial seamen, were additionally, more likely to be the victims of bribery and corruption because of their dependence on a labour recruiter to secure them work. This theme is pursued in Dick Lawless's study with reference to Arab seamen recruited at Aden. He examines the somewhat-neglected internal organization of Arab seamen recruited at Aden from the late nineteenth century. Here, the growing power of the recruiting agent is examined in the context of tighter immigration restrictions introduced in Britain after the First World War. Described as a 'necessary evil', the recruiting agent was one of the few ways through which Arab seamen at Aden could secure work on British and other European ships. A fee was payable for this privilege. Moreover, seamen at Aden were obliged to pay boardinghouse fees for accommodation whilst between ships, an additional expense.

4

ETHNIC LABOUR A N D BRITISH IMPERIAL T R A D E

Colonial seamen were often the targets of white seamen's frustration and anger. Their inferior wages and conditions, their increased visibility on British ships from the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the slump in shipping after the First World War made them an easily identifiable target for the seamen's union in particular and white seamen in general. Neil Evans's study examines the violence that erupted against ethnic labour in the port towns of Britain, with particular reference to South Shields. The riots of 1919 are firmly placed in the colonial context of inter-war Britain. Thus, the violence that ethic seamen endured due to a combination of socio-economic and political factors is seen to have had wider international implications. In a separate essay, the issue of racism and hostility experienced by West Africans in Liverpool is the subject of my own study. It examines the social and economic lives of West African Kru seamen between the 1880s and the 1960s. What is apparent is the continuity in terms of racism and discrimination at various levels and the discontinuity in terms of employment patterns. Indeed, this had much to do with the legal status of colonial seamen in Britain and the numerous provisions that were introduced to control them whilst in the country. The Aliens Order of 1920 and 1925 that were specifically introduced with reference to colonial seamen is the subject of Tony Lane's study. This explores the origins of these Orders and their workings, using the examples of Adenese Arabs in South Shields. An examination of British officialdom (police and civil servants in particular) reveals that these institutions were not merely dictated to by the calls of the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union, who wanted colonial labour controlled. Rather, the rigid nature of these institutions gave little room for individual discretion or interpretation of these Orders and focuses explanation more on the wider framework of British racism and xenophobia. South Shields is the location of David Byrne's study. This examines the interaction of Arab seamen with the socio-political aspects of the local community in the inter-war years and relates the so-called 'Arab Question' to the general political situation of South Shields. Among the issues discussed is that of the redefining of Arabs as non-British in the wake of the Aliens Order of 1920 and 1925 and the ways in which these were interpreted and implemented in South Shields. Unlike Indian Lascar seamen, who on the whole did not settle, but in common with West African Kru, Adenese Arabs married local women and settled into port towns such as South Shields and participated in certain aspects of community life. These seamen were, in many ways, pioneers in their involvement in overtly political organizations such as the Minority Movement and the Communist Party, as well as participants in trade unionism. Indeed, such activity

INTRODUCTION

5

highlights the important fact that colonial labour were not merely passive victims of racism and violence but that they were active agents, having some impact and influence on prevailing conditions. This issue is emphasized in the two other contributions. That of Marika Sherwood focuses on the strike action of West African seamen in 1940 and 1942, whilst employed on Liverpool ships. The study identifies the four-tiered wage structure in which engine-room workers were paid according to nationality and port of embarkation and describes the specific circumstances that forces these seamen to withdraw their labour power. Despite the prevailing perceptions of colonial seamen as being more passive and less willing to initiate strike action, Sherwood provides ample evidence to challenge these views. Finally, Norma Myers's essay examines the 'survival strategies' of Lascar seamen in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century London. Action initiated by these seamen themselves as a way of 'working the system' to their own benefit is the focus here and again contradicts the view that colonial seamen were merely passive recipients of British colonialism and all that this entailed. A final point raised by the studies in this volume is the complex nature of, on the one hand, the political and ideological views of organized labour and, on the other, economistic or trade union interests. We see, for example, the NSFU espousing the principles of 'internationalism' and making trade union demands on their employers, whilst simultaneously mounting a vicious and racist campaign against colonial labour. David Byrne specifically raises this issue with reference to the Arab presence in South Shields, though it has wider currency. The phenomenon has been explained through reference to short-term economistic interests. Yet, as Byrne and others have pointed out, and empirical evidence indicates, it is often more complex that this. Whilst one section of the white working class - the NSFU - was openly hostile to colonial labour, other sections of the labour movement, such as the Minority Movement in South Shields, continues to espouse the principles of internationalism throughout the inter-war period. Moreover, while the NSFU was on the whole openly racist towards colonial labour from the early twentieth century, Lunn has argued elsewhere3 that the union did, for example, support a strike by black seamen in Cardiff in 1911. Historically, the contours of racism, whilst persistent, have been uneven according to specific conditions and time period. Together, then, these essays contribute towards a number of different dimensions of British history. They could be regarded as a contribution towards the history of ethnic groups in Britain, particulary for the stillneglected pre-1945 period. Perhaps, however, they should also be seen as a significant element in the contribution towards widening 'mainstream'

6

ETHNIC LABOUR A N D BRITISH IMPERIAL T R A D E

history. They identify and expand upon important dimensions of labour and maritime history, stories which have often been institutionally-based and fail to recognize the ethnic diversity of the workforce. By placing 'race' in this context, hopefully the volume will contribute towards the process of extracting this history from its imagined and imposed 'ghetto'. NOTES 1. This collection represents a sample of some of the papers presented at the conference as well as papers that have been written since. 2. This refers specifically to transient colonial seamen or those from Britain's former colonies as distinct from European migrants fleeing religious and political persecution or economic migrants. 3. K. Lunn, 'The Seamen's Union and "Foreign" Workers on British and Colonial Shipping, 1890-1939', Labour History Review, Vol.53 (1988), p. 10.

The Black Poor of London: Initiatives of Eastern Seamen in the Eighteenth and Ninteenth Centuries NORMA MYERS From Henry Vllth's reign Lascars (Eastern seamen) were not uncommon visitors to the port of London and as the centuries progressed their numbers increased forming an important element of the black presence in Britian. Whilst scholarship tends to concentrate on their distressed state and the establishment's reaction to their plight no acount of their everyday survival within a white society exists which examines their survival strategies whilst awaiting a return passage home. This study heralds a move towards a 'history from below' approach by offering an insight into the initiativey treatment and organization of this poorly evidenced group of Lascars.

Amongst those of Eastern origin, Lascars have been commonplace visitors to Western seaports for the past two centuries, the Danes being the first nation to crew Europe-bound ships with these seamen. During the period 1780 to 1830 increasing numbers of both East and West Indians were employed on British ships. From the late eighteenth century onwards Lascars became a numerically significant element within the black presence in Britain; their increasing numbers resulted in contemporary alarm, yet they have received only cursory attention from historians. J.G. Birch Limehouse Through Five Centuries (London, 1931) noted that from the reign of Henry VII 'in Limehouse any day in the week, one may meet strangers whose home address is in any corner of the seven seas - Lascars with slip-shod gait, Malays and Chinese, turbaned Indians'; previously John Salter writing in 1873 referred to this sub-group of seamen in The Asiatics in England1 There has been a persistent tendency in the scholarship to concentrate on the Lascars' distressed circumstances and the reaction of the Establishment in terms of the creation of the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor. Folarin Shyllon, for example, notes in that 'although most of the Black Poor were Africans, a sizeable number were Indians, chiefly Lascars!'2 Lascars' lack of initiative has been perpetuated to some extent

8

ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

by Conrad Dixon, who concentrates exclusively on this group of 'forgotten seamen', and this trend has been continued in Rozina Visram's more general approach to Eastern visitors entitled Ayahs, Lascars and Princes.* Yet, these publications neglect to include any account of their everyday survival within a white society, particularly the mechanisms for existence whilst awaiting a return passage. Most Lascars were sojourners; they were part-time agriculturists/parttime seamen whose prime concern was to return home with income earned from seafaring activities. Their residence in England was enforced due to the imbalanced nature of trade with the East, and as such was beyond their control. My interest in Lascars occurred whilst researching the History of Black People in Britain. Lascar seamen frequently crossed my path appearing in the various sources utilized. Thus in the Old Bailey Sessions Papers and Newgate Calendars for the period 1780-1830 Lascars were found amongst victims, offenders and witnesses appearing before the courts. Parish registers studied for baptisms and burials proved less rewarding as only one death was recorded in the same period. Lascars, however, were well documented in Parliamentary Papers and I became intrigued by these seamen. The most important body of information lies in the form of the East India Office books which proved invaluable as indicators of patterns of Lascar recruitment and treatment. Thus, to recapitulate, foremost amongst the sources that inform this study have been the India Office Library Records which yielded detailed information on numbers, treatment, and the health of Lascars whilst in London. 4 Other evidence has been quarried from British Parliamentary Papers which also comprise an important body of material, and the 1814-15 Report to the Parliamentary Commission on Lascars and Other Asiatic Seamen,5 Parliamentary Papers relating to East India Affairs (1816) ,6 and the Parliamentary Report on the State of Mendicity in the Metropolis (1814-15), have also been used in this study.7 Finally, criminal records and parish registers afford momentary insights into the lives of Lascars.8 It is the intention of this survey then, to broaden our knowledge on the initiative, treatment and organization of Lascars, a poorly evidenced group, who formed both a distinctive component of London's black poor population, and a separate group from other black seamen. Their mechanisms for survival were diverse and ranged from begging, which generated white pity, to selling items of clothing and bedding issued by the East India Company which demonstrated that by exercising their initiative they 'worked the system'. Although Lascars were free men, unlike their Negro counterparts whose status proved difficult to define, their earning capacity was consistently undermined by the Indian system of recruitment

9

THE BLACK POOR OF LONDON

which was riddled with bribery and corruption. It is also possible to offer some comment on the viability of Lascar family and community. Despite missionary zeal they chose not to imbibe the English language or culture. Thus, assimilation into a wider 'host' society proved problematical as they were quartered in barracks for the duration of their stay. Within the limitations of time and space it is proposed firstly to define the term Lascar and discuss estimates of their numbers in eighteenth and nineteenth century London; and secondly, investigate patterns of recruitment and treatment. Overall, it is intended to offer a deeper insight into their conditions and experiences during their sojourn in London during the period 1780 and 1830 which heralds a move away from a 'history from above' approach which views Lascars as being 'acted upon' rather than 'actors' in their own destinies. I The term 'Lascar' (defined as Eastern seamen) originally came into common usage to denote an Indian seaman but, according to Salter, by the mid-nineteenth century, the term included 'Burmese, Bengali, Malay, Chinese, Siamese, and Surati'. 9 During our period, it was calculated by R.M. Hughes that of those Lascars employed in the British merchant service, '60 per cent [were] natives of India, 20 per cent Malays or Natives of the Straits of Malacca, Java and . . . 10 per cent [were] the Natives of China, and 10 per cent [were] Natives of East Africa and Arabia.' 10 Thus, it would appear that the term Lascar was applicable to a broad spectrum of nationalities and it is interesting to note that the British employed the single category of 'Lascar' for such a heterogeneous collection of people. Official statistics relating to Lascar numbers tabulated in Table 1, serve to indicate the size of this Eastern black presence. It is assumed that prior to 1780, Lascars did not serve in the ships of the East India Company in large numbers, as Section 7 of the 1660 Navigation Acts stipulated that the master, and at least 75 per cent of the crew of the British-registered ships which imported goods from Asia, had to be British. The extent to which this Act was actually enforced must remain the subject of conjecture, especially in view of the increasing numbers of stranded Lascars in London. These regulations would have been relaxed as Eastern seamen became required to 'bridge the gap' in times of warfare, when British crews of the East India Company's freighted ships were subjected to heavy impressment." From the early nineteenth century, India and the East Indies became increasingly important as exporters of cotton and sugar. Therefore, a greater supply of labour was required for the shipment of this

10

E T H N I C L A B O U R A N D BRITISH IMPERIAL T R A D E

TABLE 1 SOME EXPENSES INCURRED BY THE EAST INDIA COMPANY FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF LASCARS AND CHINESE BROUGHT TO ENGLAND, 1803-13 Year 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813

Lascar Numbers

471 603 538 1,278 1,110

965

1,403

929 1,193 1,316

Source: India Office Library Records, L/MAR/C/902, Vol.IL

produce, resulting in the recruitment of increasing numbers of Lascars. As captains in foreign sea ports found themselves short-handed they engaged foreign seamen and paid them the rates prevailing in the port. It must have been cheaper to employ these Eastern seamen even if they had to be maintained in Britain whilst ships were being turned around; hence numbers of Lascars increased as, according to Table 1 the London maintenance records of Lascars, it rose sixfold during the Napoleonic Wars.12 Rozina Visram notes that the number of Lascars employed in British ships depended upon; 'not only the number of the ships and the growth of British trade with the East, but also on the availability of the Lascar sailors themselves. In a good agricultural year the number of those working on ships fell. '13 The prospect of alternative employment becomes even more significant in comparing Lascars with other seamen. Lascars were essentially agriculturists, whose plots of land remained under cultivation whilst they earned income from sea-faring activities; thus many had economic prospect of dual-employment. This resulted in a tendency for Lascars to return to their country of origin, preferring not to reside permanently in England, although there is some evidence to suggest a minority did settle. Other black crews of Afro-American, West Indian, or African descent (Kru seamen of the West African coast in particular), were occupied as full-time sailors, and not as part-seafarers/partagriculturists. By the mid-nineteenth century, Hughes argued that, 'at the very lowest computation from 10 to 12,000 Lascars [were] employed in the British merchant service in the East India, China, and the Australian trade; and about half that number [were] annually brought to the United Kingdom." 4 Lascars formed an increasingly signficant component of the black

11

THE BLACK POOR OF LONDON

maritime fraternity throughout the nineteenth century. The implications of this presence have been ignored by those historians who regard this period as one in which black numbers declined.15 With reference to the size of this Lascar population in London, the Reverend James Pegg stated that, 'it is not possible to speak with any precision. It varies according to the circumstances affecting the supply of British seamen in our Eastern territories.' 16 Accurate conclusions regarding Lascar representation in London's population of 1780-1830 prove difficult. In this instance, research into parish registers proved unrewarding as reference to only one Lascar burial was found.17 The absence of these seamen in baptismal records should fail to surprise as most would have been of the Hindu or Muslim religions. The Record of Expenses for the Maintenance of Lascars outlined in Table 1 indicates that a minimum of 224 Lascars were abroad in the metropolis in 1803. Whilst the term 'lascar' is difficult to define and their numbers remain difficult to estimate, it is, however, possible to distinguish between methods of recruitment and treatment of Lascars and other black seamen of African, Afro-American, American, and West Indian origin. II Lascars experienced the worst conditions of any non-British in this country, being stranded in ports pending their return voyage. Their situation was beyond their control, and was the result of an imbalanced trade with the East that demanded payment in bullion rather than with British exports. The Lascar sojourn in English ports proved lengthy, because of the exogenous influence of trade with the East, which was further compounded by the legal stipulation for British crews on India-bound ships. Lascars also tended to be regarded as inferior to European seamen. A Select Committee on the East India Company reported that two Lascars may be considered equal to one European; in a cold climate the Lascar becomes of no value. Two Lascars can keep watch more easily than one European, and do many small jobs; there is not much work on board a ship that requires great strength. The conditions of the Indian ship without European officers is as slovenly, dirty and ill-managed as possible.18 Yet, despite these supposed imperfections, their recruitment continued in ever-increasing numbers during the nineteenth century. Lascars proved to be a cheap, elastic supply of labour; their renumeration was much lower than European or Negro seamen, so that 'had an individual

12

ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

received all of his monthly pay it would have amounted to between a sixth and a seventh of the European rates'. 19 Also the cost of victualling a Lascar crew was 50 per cent less than that of a British crew, being six pence per head per day, as opposed to twelve pence a day. Apart from the differences in pay and costs of victualling, further distinctions become apparent. Negro seamen were usually full-time sailors employed as cooks, stewards or deck-hands; unlike their Indian maritime counterparts who were primarily agriculturists, forced into seafaring activities to supplement income in periods of bad harvest. However, the Lascar possessed one advantage over other black men; he remained free from both enslavement and impressment, threats under which the Negro, as a British subject, continuously laboured. An essential contrast between Lascars and other seamen was the Lascar's method of recruitment and treatment on land and at sea. Negro and European sailors were engaged individually (or impressed individually), and at the end of a voyage received all of their pay, excluding subsidies and including bounties; whereas the Lascar was recruited through a 'middle man' who retained a percentage of the seaman's wages. This system of recruiting Lascars revolved around the key figure of a ghat serang, whose position was prominent in the Indian shipping world, being a 'combination of money lender, labour recruiter, and lodging house keeper'.20 Within such a system, corruption was rife. The ghat serang was in turn, bribed by a serang (the equivalent of a boatswain who was in charge of Lascars whilst at sea and on terra firma) for obtaining their billets, according to the size of the ship. Lascars themselves bribed the serangs with both a proportion of the advance received for signing a contract with the East India Company, and with part of their subsequent wages. A letter from the Bengal Superintendent of Police in 1793 noted that Lascars seldom receive half of the impress which is paid for them by the Captains and sometimes much less. The people who are security for these Lacars [serangs] . . . are seized and confined by the Ghat Serangs and obliged to make the whole of the impress for a Lascar.21 Despite various attempts to abandon this system of recruitment, riddled as it was with bribery, it proved to be too entrenched; even Warren Hastings in 1783 was forced into an accommodation with the ghat serangs who monopolized the supply of labour. The India Office Library Records reveal frequent complaints regarding the suitability of these Lascars as seafarers were ignored, as were those levied against the ghat serangs for failure to provide the required quotas of seamen.22 The 1814-15 Committee Report on Lascars and other Asiatic Seamen

THE BLACK POOR OF LONDON

13

stipulated their requirements. Each Lascar was to be provided with a bed, pillow, two jackets and trousers, shoes and two woollen caps.23 Therefore, after 1815, whilst at sea, Lascars fared better than other black seamen, certainly with regard to their clothing needs. Religion tended not to be a factor taken into consideration in task allocation on British-manned vessels, but Lascar crews proved an exception to this rule. Muslims appeared to be appointed to less menial tasks than Hindus, who usually remained on the deck of the ship.24 Unlike other seamen of European, African, Afro-American or West Indian descent, Lascars remained ignorant of the English language. Therefore, they encountered communication difficulties on their arrival in British ports. They remained stranded in an alien environment for a long period of time, until an Indian-bound ship returned them home. As early as 1782 a complaint had been sent by the East India Company to Fort St George, India, regarding several Lascars who had landed in London from Denmark, and were forced to apply to the Company for assistance.25 Historians have commented upon the plight of those Lascars in London referring specifically to the assistance given by white philanthropists. In this context the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor is frequently cited in the historiography. Yet few noted that some Lascars used their initative and sold bedding and clothing in order to survive; others resorted to begging and crime, and some fell victim to the British climate. George estimated Lascar deaths to be 'one hundred and forty per annum'. 26 Despite the frequent requests, the East India Company repeatedly refused to acccept responsibility for the repatriation of these Eastern seamen. The 1814 legislation then, by placing the onus through a bonding system, on the master or owner of the ship, did little to alleviate the situation. The East India Company abrogated responsibility for the return of this group of seamen to their places of origin. Prior to the passage of this Act, the East India Company had made arrangements for Lascars to be lodged in East London's Kingsland Road and at Shoreditch, at a cost of ten shillings and six pence per week.27 Furthermore, a medical officer, Hilton Docker, was appointed by the Company. In a letter to the Shipping Committee of the East India Company, he stated that the natives of India who came to this country are mostly of bad constitutions. Numbers are landed from these ships where they have been ill a great part of the voyage. . . . Those who are landed healthy are of course exposed to the same danger of climate and season; and in addition almost all of them give way to every excess in drinking, debauchery and contract to a violent degree those

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ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

diseases (particularly venereal) which such liberties are calculated to produce. 28 Hilton Docker's report on the poor condition of Lascars detail the health of crews on their arrival in 1814.2q The worst incident outlined in the records relates to the ship Wellington which had sailed from Bombay with 71 Lascars; several had died on the passage, and sixteen were taken to hospital on arrival at Gravesend. The resident surgeon reported the sick to be afflicted with berry berry [sic] or scorbatic disorders peculiar to Lascars . . . three of them have died since arrival in the Downs and two or three others are beyond all human aid. Had the ships met with ten days longer detention and bad weather in the Channel, I am of the opinion that more than half of the crew would have been incapable of duty from that disease.3" According to the Surgeon's Report to the Committee on Shipping 26 May 1802, 73 Lascars were on the sick list of the ships Union, Ganges, Perseverance, and the County of Sutherland during the period March to May 1801. Twenty-two Lascars died, 34 recovered and 17 remained in sick quarters.31 Accounts of Lascar mortality rates are also to be found in Parliamentary Papers of 1816, which indicate that during the period 1 May 1813 to 30 April 1814, 96 Lascars and 31 Chinese died in the Company hospital or in the Company barracks.32 That Lascar crews suffered high rates of mortality is undeniable, all seafarers were aware of sickness and death, unfortunately paucity of information prohibits comparison, especially with other groups of seamen. Regarding treatment, all black sailors were possibly subjected to illtreatment from white superiors and officers (the evidence of Thomas Clarkson, the abolitionist, referred to the existence of cruelties perpetrated by whites in authority); but Lascars also suffered twofold due to the tyranny of fellow countrymen in the guise of the serang on land and at sea.33 An example of the former, concerned the ship Union which sailed from Bengal in 1802 with a crew of 74 Lascars. Twenty-eight were dead on arrival in England and the serang complained that the chief mate had 'flogged and beat the men in a most cruel manner under the Captain's orders'. 34 Lascars were evidently berthed in the forecastle and 'several of the men died in consequence of severe treatment and having nowhere to sleep'.35 The serang further stated that 'the chief mate took some of the men by the hair of their heads, pulled them down, beat their heads against the deck and jumped upon them while down, that one died three days after being so ill-treated'.36 Thomas Clarkson, however, noted that some

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T H E B L A C K POOR OF L O N D O N

serangs were as capable of such cruelties. In a letter to Reverend John Charlesworth in 1842, he wrote of an incident that had occurred previously in 1822; 'When I was in London, about twenty years ago and at Mr. Alein's house, he and I heard of the cruel treatment of these poor Lascars when we determined that we would, both of us visit their quarters and judge for ourselves.' An English-speaking Lascar informed Clarkson that they were ill-fed and badly treated by a superior Lascar who frequently whipped them. Inside the barracks Clarkson found two or three large cupboards of the height of sentry boxes, but not open, but having a door to them and with locks on them. We asked what they contained; the Lascar (superior Lascar) would not tell us. We demanded that they should be opened when out came a living Lascar; a second was opened and another Lascar came out.37 These Lascars, as a punishment for bad behaviour and quarrelling, had been incarcerated in the boxes by the serang. Dr Hilton Docker was only too well aware of the ill-treatment of Lascars by the serangs, and reported on a case in which a delinquent had been tied to the pump and flogged.38 Flogging was apparently the normal punishment inflicted for those 'selling their own clothes, thieving, or some offence against one of their own class'.V) Although the motives may have been applauded, the punishment was far too severe. With reference to the sale of clothing and bedding the initatives of these seamen will be displayed. Ill As previously noted, Lascars 'worked the system' as demonstrated by the frequent sale of clothing and bedding which had been issued by the East India Company. The Parliamentary Commission on Lascars of 1814-15 Report from the Committee on Lascars and Other Asiatic Seamen notes the propensity of Lascars to sell articles supplied to them by the Company.40 Hilton Docker described his pursuit of one Lascar into a shop, culminating in threats to prosecute the shopkeeper if he purchased belongings of Lascars.41 Evidently the shopkeeper was not deterred from buying articles of clothing and bedding from Lascars, as Docker's assistant on a later occasion detected him buying a pair of shoes.42 Lascars, too, persisted in this deceit. Docker complained that 'every artifice is practised to deceive me. They have presented themselves in almost a literal state of nudity when searches have been made, abundant clothes have been found.'43 Lascars, then displayed initative, under the conditions of the 1814 Act

16

ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

they had to be clothed and maintained by the owners of the ships that brought them to England. The sale of such clothing and bedding was a mechanism for obtaining money. Other black or European sailors did not have the same claims on those who shipped them to England. The essence of the differences that existed between Lascars and other black seamen is outlined in a report from Hilton Docker to the East India Company on 14 December 1814. This report was mainly concerned with the death of two West Indian or African seamen, of whom, one had died due to the inclemency of the weather. Of the other seaman, John Dennis Docker stated still he was very different from a Lascar, he was a native of Mozambique in Africa; was shipped in the Minerva as an able seaman, and as such was paid and victualled at the full rate, the same as if he had been an Englishman . . . Till now it was never thought than an African seaman like Dennis, of which description there are hundreds in the navy and merchant service, had any [more] claims upon the Company [East India] for support in this country than any other distressed foreignor [sic] or Engishman who may have served in one of the Company's ships.44 Thus, usually only Lascars had claims on the East India Company, therefore, John Dennis posed an acute problem, being a black African (paid at a different rate to Lascars), on board an East India Company ship. Apart from the India Office Records which afford glimpses of Lascar initiative, criminal records and Parliamentary Papers, in particular the Report on the State of Mendicity in the Metropolis (1814-15), which have been incorporated in this survey of 'forgotten seamen'. Such sources enable us to broaden our knowledge of Lascars by recording some of their mechanisms of existence whilst in England. New dimensions and departures have been achieved in black history through the work of Stephen Braidwood and the purpose of this study in general, and this final section in particular, is to follow this trend with respect to Lascars.45 London's criminal records relating to the Old Bailey Sessions Papers and Newgate Calendars were extensively and intensively researched for evidence of the black presence in the period 1780 to 1830. Although 132 black people were identified only those cases that specify Lascars will be referenced within this section.46 The Newgate Calendars failed to distinguish any Lascars amongst those 47 blacks that appeared before the court in the period 1791-1810; indeed, of those of Eastern origin, only one East Indian valet was recognized. The Old Bailey Sessions Papers proved more rewarding in their identification of 85 black people of whom 25 originated in India and the East

THE BLACK POOR OF LONDON

17

Indies. Thus, the criminal records demonstrated that 26 brought before the courts as victim, witness or indicted were of Eastern origin and comprised 19.7 per cent of the total black presence whose origins were identifiable; whilst those of Afro-American, West Indian descent (together with the unknown element), 106 in all, formed 80.3 per cent. Some of the group whose places of birth were unspecified, might, of course, have contained Lascars. Within this Eastern group of accused, victim and witness, 15 were described as Lascars. Eight were indicted for crime, five proved to be victims, and two appeared before the Old Bailey as witnesses. The presence of two Lascars as victims merit attention; Sawney Clough, and Henry Rose, the former being the victim of assault and robbery and the latter the victim of robbery. A witness in the case of Clough robbed of a hat, handkerchief and money, stated that 4a Lascar had been robbed'. More detailed information is available in the case of Henry Rose whose shirt, trousers, tin-box and handkerchief were stolen by Peter Dubey. A witness, Thomas Stevens declared that 'Rose is a Lascar. There is a barracks for Lascars at Shadwell, and he [Rose] was there'. 47 Another case of assault involved Jacob George, a native of Calcutta who was assaulted at the Guards Barracks, 'a place where Indian foreign seamen live'.48 Servo was recognized as a servant who stole from his master Captain John Duncan Gray. Under normal circumstances, Servo's crime would have resulted in a capital charge, but the Court was possibly influenced by the bonding system of 1814, and the forfeiture of the bond by the Captain, had Servo failed to leave the country.49 A more unusual case of theft involved Lascars as criminal, victim and witness; the victim being the serang. Nowardin was accused of the theft of sixteen pairs of trousers, value 32s, sixteen shirts valued 32s, two brass pots, value 4s, one hundred and forty pounds weight of spice, value 10s, and a 51. bank note, the property of Mahomet Casmet. Mahomet Casmet. I am a boatswain. Q. Did you lose your property? - A. Yes, on the 27th January, from the East Indian Company barracks . . . Matólo. The prisoner came into the room, he asked for the serang's boy.50 The case of the three Lascars; Sacchar, Glosse and Savau, accused and found guilty of the manslaughter of Immambacchus also deserves inclusion. Immambacchus was beaten to death with sticks, he had cohabited with a white woman, Sarah Williams at 22, Cable Court, Cable Street, and her evidence stated that 'the deceased was a Lascar'.51 Overall, of those cases relating to Lascars in the Old Bailey sample,

18

ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

three were indicted for murder, three for the more common crime of theft, and two for conspiracy. Johnny and Sider Cann appeared at the Old Bailey, indicted for conspiring to charge Thomas Dixon Finney with the murder of Butler John (another Lascar). The captain, in his evidence, stated that 'the prisoner Johnny was a Lascar. He was a serang, the boatswain; he is the man that employed the whole of the ship's crew and pays them'.52 The sentencing of those Lascars found guilty of crime appeared to be no more or no less severe in comparison to their white or Negro counterparts. Only one transportée, Nowardin, was to be found. He was convicted of theft and transported for a seven year period. However, those found guilty of manslaughter and conspiracy received less severe punishment, being fined one shilling and confined to houses of correction for one or two years. While a few Lascars resorted to theft, many more probably turned to begging in order to try to survive in a white, metropolitan society. One instance of a Lascar who utilized his initiatve and reportedly became wealthy through begging, is frequently referred to by historians, and appears in the Report on the State of Mendicity in the Metropolis 1814-15. The watch-housekeeper of St Giles's and St George's, Bloomsbury, reported that: There is a little black man who has frequently been brought into the watch-house for begging. I have seen him have a bag with silver and another bag with copper; . . . and I have been told at the public house, he would spend fifty shillings a week for his board; he would spit his own goose or his own duck and live very well . . . Is this a Lascar? Yes. Is he addicted to spirits? Yes, he would drink himself a pint of spirits off at a time, and a number of other Lascars I have seen who live by begging.53 However, it should be noted, with reference to other blacks, that caution must be exercised in interpreting reports of 'Beggar Kings'. Clashes between Lascars and others were sometimes known to occur. Scobie noted a battle between Lascars and black beggars towards the end of the eighteenth century, and this disturbance was not unique.54 Michael Banton similarily refers to a pitched battle involving Lascars and Chinese in 1808, in which several hundred participated.55 This fight allegedly occurred on the Ratcliff Highway, in London's East End, and the causes of this fracas remain unknown. In November 1785, five Lascars brought a court action against an East Indian ship's managing-owner for the balance

19

THE BLACK POOR OF LONDON

of their wages. Thus, Lascars in this example, were not afraid to use the machinery of the law in order to obtain their rightful enumeration. 56 Lascars could not easily assimilate into dockside communities whilst in residence as they tended to be confined to barracks. Visram and Jones note that the absence of Indian or East Indian females would have resulted in the formation of liaisons with white women. Such relationships were sanctioned informally by living over the brush', this institution was commented upon by Sheik Hamed. Guests at the 'mock ceremony' 'get some gin and some beer, a fiddle, and a broom, sang and played the fiddle, and I was married'. 57 However, most had families in their homeland and their main objective was to return to them. IV In conclusion, the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor in London was founded in 1787 specifically to assist the above-mentioned group of Eastern seamen whose distressed plight evoked philanthropic zeal in an age of governmental laissez-faire. Stephen Braidwood identified initiatives and organization (by demands for certificates of freedom and arms) amongst the black poor who had agreed to embark on the expedition bound for Sierra Leone. Those contracted for the voyage received 'outdoor relief of sixpence per day, their numbers prior to the voyage was calculated by the authorities to be 960. According to Braidwood 'of the 960 who received allowances, 350 were aboard the ships in February'. 58 However, he failed to recognize the full implication of this reduction in the numbers of those actually aboard the Sierra Leone-bound vessels that the black poor had taken advantage of this relief and consequently 'worked the system'. This trend was also apparently followed by Lascars, as it appears that despite repression from their Indian superiors and the paternalistic motives of white people, Lascars managed their own survival mechanisms which proved diverse ranging from the sale of clothes and bedding issued by the East India Company, begging through to criminal activities. This study then has afforded a glimpse into the treatment, recruitment and experience of those Eastern seamen stranded in the port of London in the period 1780-1830.

NOTES 1. J.G. Birch, Limehouse Through Five Centuries (London, 1931), p. 142. J. Salter, The Asiatics in England (London, 1873). 2. F. Shyllon, Black People in Britain (Oxford, 1977), p.122.

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3. C. Dixon, 'Lascars': The Forgotten Seamen', in R. Ommer and G. Panting (eds.), Working Men Who Got Wet Conference Papers of the Maritime History Group Newfoundland (1980); R. Visram, Ayahs, Lascars and Princes (London, 1986). 4. British Parliamentary Papers (referred to hereafter as BPP), Vols. 1814-15 471 (III), 1816, 349 (X). India Office Library Records (hereafter referred to as IOLR) L/MAR/ C/802 and L/MAR/C/902 Vols. I and II, refer to treatment, numbers, and health of Lascars, and are held at the India Office Library Records Office, London. 5. BPP 1814-15 (471) III 217. 6. BPP 1816 (X) 349. 7. BPP 1814-15 (471) III. 8. London Parish Registers include, St Paul's, Deptford, PAU 75/1-2, 5; St Nicholas's, Deptford, P78/NIC/5-7; St Anne's, Limehouse, P9/ANN/2-4; All Saints, Poplar, P88/ ALL/1-9; St George's in the East, P93/GEO/5-6; St Marylebone, X23/14-17; St John at Hackney, P79/JN 1/27, Parts I & II. Held at the Greater London Records Office, London, hereafter referred to as the GLRO St Katherine's by the Tower, MS 9668; Holy Trinity, Minories, MS 9293; St Stephen Walbrook, MS 8319/2, are held at the Guildhall, London, hereafter referred to as GH London. 9. J. Salter, The Asiatics, p.l. 10. R.M. Hughes, The Laws Relating to Lascars and Asiatic Seamen employed in the British Merchant Services or brought to the United Kingdom in Foreign Vessels (London, 1855), p.5. 11. IOLR L/MAR/C/902 Vol.1, Letter of 23 Feb. 1815 from East India House to N. Vansittart. 12. IOLR L/MAR/C/902 Vol.11, Some Expenses . . . (see Table 1.1). In 1803 224 Lascars were being maintained, this number had increased to 1,336 by 1813. 13. R. Visram, Ayfl/îs,p.53. 14. R.Hughes, The Laws, p.5. 15. There is a distinct possibility that historians may accept that Lascars were a component of the black presence, and as such, have ignored their existence. 16. Rev. J. Pegg, The Lascars Cry to Britain (London, 1844), p.5. 17. The register for St Nicholas's, Deptford on 17 March 1780 records the demise of 'George Miller, a Lascar from Frenata Fields'. 18. BPP East India Company Affairs. Minutes of the Evidence of a Select Committee on the East India Company Affairs, Vol.11 (1832). IUP Colonies, East India, Vol.6, p.309. 19. C. Dixon, 'Lascars', p.266. 20. Ibid. 21. IOLR P/4/24 Bengal Public Consultations. (1793.) Letter from Superintendent of Police, 18 Nov. 1793. 22. IOLR L/MAR/C/802 Report on Lascars 1793-1818. 23. C. Dixon,'Lascars', p.267 lists details of Lascar diet. 24. Ibid.,p.217. 25. IOLR HOME/MISC/163. Despatch from East India Company, London (1782). 26. M. D. George, London Life, p. 143. 27. IOLR L/MAR/C/902 Vol.1 (1809). 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., Vol.11. 30. Ibid. 31. ILORHOME/MISC/SOL Committee on Shipping, 26 May 1802. 32. Ibid.,p.l6. 33. T. Clarkson, The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the African Slave Trade (London, 1808), p.399. 34. IOLRHOME/MISC/SOL. Committee on Shipping, 26 May 1802. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. J. Salter, The Asiatics, p.4. 38. IOLR L/MAR/C/902 Vol.1. Ill-treatment by serangs. Letter from Dr Hilton Docker to

THE BLACK POOR OF LONDON

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

21

Shipping Committee of the East India Company, p.44. Ibid.,p.5(). Ibid. IOLRL/MARCH/C/902 Vol.1. Ill-treatment, p.50. Ibid. Ibid.,p.59. BPP 1816, p.15. S. Braidwood, initiatives and Organisation of the Black Poor 1786-1787', Slavery and Abolition, Vol.3 (1892), pp.211-27. Old Bailey Sessions Papers. 1785-90; 1795-1800; 1805-1810; 1815-1820, and 1825-30, hereafter referred to as OB/SP. Held at the Guildhall London. Newgate Calendars. HO 26/1-46, 1790-1840, hereafter referred to as NC. Held at the Public Records Office, Kew (hereafter referred to as PRO, Kew). OB/SP 1785 Case 813, p. 1067. OB/SP 1826-7 Case 1826, p.71(). OB/SP 1831 Case 1967, pp.925-6. BPP Report from Committee on Lascars and Other Asiatic Seamen, 1814-15, p. 11. OB/SP 1814-15 Case 284, p. 150. Theft of clothing concerned Dr Hilton Docker. OB/SP 1807-8Case 395, pp.280-83. OB/SP 1814-15 Case 589, pp.263-4. BPP 1814-15 III Report from the Committee on the States of Mendicity in the Metropolis (1815),p.84. E. Scobie, Black Britannia (London, 1972), p.64. M. Banton, The Coloured Quarter (London, 1955), p.25. F.ShyUon, Black People,p.\23. J. Salter, The Asiatics, p.43. S. Braidwood, T h e Establishment of the Sierra Leone Settlement', unpublished M.Phil, dissertation, University of Liverpool (1981), p. 140.

Racism, Work and Unemployment: West African Seamen in Liverpool 1880s-1960s DIANE FROST The contribution of West Africans to British maritime interests and their experience of this work has largely gone ignored in accounts of British trade with West Africa. To understand both Britain's role in Africa and the experience of West African seamen it is necessary to focus on the ideological consequences of Britain's quest for empire, in particular the re-shaping of racist attitudes and practice that operated at various levels. These developments were directly linked to the historical economic needs of British capitalism, particularly shipping, where the rise and fall in the fortunes of British shipping are reflected in the employment of colonial labour. The precarious socio-economic status of West African seamen in Liverpool will be examined as well as the various responses their increased use on British ships provoked. The following account will focus on the experience of one particular West African ethnic group called the Kru, who travelled between Freetown and Liverpool on board Elder vessels in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The experience of the Kru is one shared by other colonial seamen. The article will develop as follows, first a brief examination of the historical tradition of seafaring among West African Kru on European and American vessels generally. Second I will focus on their work on Elder Dempster vessels and assess the contribution to British mercantile trade with West Africa. Third, the experience of West Africans will be considered in the light of their employment and response from organized labour and fourth, I will show how migrant labour such as the Kru were marginalized in terms of employment opportunities during the inter-war years when economic conditions changed for the worse. I Seafaring amongst West African Kru began as far back as the eighteenth century when they were taken on to replace white crews who had fallen sick or had died from fever and malaria. West Africans were also used to

WEST AFRICAN SEAMEN IN LIVERPOOL 1880s-1960s

23

save white seamen from performing the more arduous tasks whilst on the African coast. Thus in a Colonial Office file for the 1920s reference was made to: T h e crew of the good ship Angola were now replaced by Krooboys who handled everything like born sailors and replaced the whites who were put to work on easier jobs like washing winches, splicing ropes for slings, sail making etc. . . . " There is much evidence of West African Kru working on British vessels in the nineteenth century to save white sailors. Thus in the 1830s and 1840s Kru were used on British warships to save white sailors from exposure to the sun and mosquitoridden mangrove swamps. An account of a voyage to West Africa contained in the Nautical Magazine in 1855 echoed these sentiments: 'Vessels visiting that coast take on board . . . some black sailors, called Kroomen, who are of great use in doing the heavy work on board and for boat service, thus saving the European seamen from exposing themselves too much to the sun rays and C. (literally, the inclemencies of the climate) . . . . , : With the arrival of the steamship, African sailors were again seen to be a valuable asset since it was believed they could withstand the heat of the enginerooms more readily than Europeans, especially in the tropics. Thus the Liverpool Steam Ship Owners Association claimed whilst giving evidence to a select committee on the Mercantile Marine, Liverpool (1902) that foreign seamen generally were not only 'more amenable to discipline' but were indispensable in hot climates, especially as firemen.3 As trade with West Africa grew throughout the nineteenth century, increasing numbers of Africans were employed on board ship and could be found temporarily resident in Liverpool. West African seamen proved to be a valuable asset in several ways. According to Mary Kingsley they were hard workers performing all the heavy work on board ship. Harry Johnston talked of an 'indispensable gang of Kru boys who perform all the rough labour . . . on the Oil Rivers'. 4 In 1919 the Home Office explained that ships masters often preferred West African seamen because of their 'better discipline and greater energy, and these reasons operate still more in their favour if the voyage is in tropical areas'. 5 Whilst West African seamen were perceived to be equal to white seamen in terms of the work they performed, in practice this did not extend to equality in wages and conditions. Thus by the first decade of the twentieth century, if West Africans were engaged at an African port, they were paid lower wages than British crews. Kru seafarers migrated to port cities such as Freetown and Liverpool as a direct consequence of this seafaring tradition, and the historical trading links established in the nineteenth century between Liverpool and West Africa. The growth of 'legitimate trade' in the nineteenth century saw the recruitment of West Africans to fulfil the specific labour needs of British

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colonialism. This became more important after the mid-nineteenth century with the arrival of the steamship. West African Kru came to occupy an economic niche as seafarers and ship workers on this colonial trade. The growth of 'legitimate trade' with West Africa after the slave trade was abolished in Britain in 1807, was based on primary products such as palm-oil, timber, ground-nuts and cocoa. Palm-oil became the most lucrative product because of its uses in the manufacturing of products such as soap, candles and margarine. It could also be used as a lubricant for machinery. Colonial trade encouraged specialization in primary products for export. Thus whilst the 'Oil Rivers' in Nigeria concentrated on the production of palm-oil, other areas such as Sierra Leone specialized in the production of coffee, ginger, palm-kernels, cocoa, iron-ore and diamonds. Specialization also occurred in the division of labour involved in the exploitation of raw materials and in its transportation both to the West African coast and to the markets of Europe. Freetown developed as an important centre in the export of primary products, its large natural harbour enabling it to accommodate large vessels. By the second half of the nineteenth century, technological innovation as seen in the development of steam power had widespread implications for the shipping industry and for the labour employed. Fewer able seamen were needed on steamships and increasingly, foreign labour was used. The newly created positions of fireman and trimmers below deck and seamen on deck were increasingly filled from the mid-nineteenth century by foreign European seamen and colonial West African and Asian ratings. This came at a time when British merchant shipping came to dominate the movement of the world's trade. The application of steam in the shipping industry by the mid-nineteenth century led to the development of numerous competitive steamship companies. In the West African trade, newly emerging companies were eventually absorbed into or came under the management of more successful and profitable companies. In 1852 McGregor Laird founded the African Steam Ship Company operating direct services between Britain and West Africa. The Company was joined in 1861 by Alfred Jones, John Holt, Alexander Elder and John Dempster, whose names would become synonymous with West African shipping by the turn of the century. The British and African Steam Navigation Company, which sailed from Liverpool, was formed in 1868. Elder and Dempster became its agents after leaving the African Steam Ship Company, and incorporated this under the new name Elder Dempster. Under the auspices of Alfred Jones who joined Elder Dempster in 1879, Elder Dempster and Co. began to manage the African Steam Ship Company in 1890, and in 1900 purchased the rival firm - the British and African Steam Navigation Company. Liverpool's African shipping

WEST AFRICAN SEAMEN IN LIVERPOOL 1880s-1960s

25

companies managed to secure by the late nineteenth century the largest share of the West African trade, serving the majority of trading posts and ports along this coast. The incorporation and management by Elder Dempster of the major British shipping companies operating in West Africa, meant that the almost complete control of the West African trade was secured and operated from Liverpool by the early twentieth century.6 None of the shipping companies and merchants that operated on the coast of West Africa could pursue their commercial interests without the use of local labour. Kru labour drawn from Liberia and Sierra Leone was used for both shore work throughout West Africa and beyond, extracting raw materials or working the plantations that would form the bulk of colonial trade, and as sea and river workers, as deck hands, stevedores, and auxiliaries which colonial trade depended for its transportation. Thus in 1897, Government House in Freetown explained to the Foreign Office that Kru labourers 'are the mainstay of the shipping labour all along the West Coast and if it should become not worth their while to leave the country we shall be in great difficulties with regard to the shipment and discharge of cargo.' 7 A year later, Government House again reiterated the importance of Kroo labour to the colony of Lagos: 4Any proceedings which hinder Krooboys from leaving their country for service on the West coast is a serious matter to this colony, as it depends almost entirely upon them for the class of labour which is employed by those firms who themselves ship produce or have branch steamers of their own to work . . .'. 8 The roles performed by Kru and European labour changed little throughout the first half of the twentieth century and were wholly interchangeable, although in any one ship Kru and European merchant seamen remained confined to specific work. These seamen were engaged in routine maintenance, such as cleaning, repairing, painting and also duties such as taking the wheel and keeping lookout. During the 1920s, the African crews were reputed to be as competent as European ones. According to Captain L. James the African crews '. . . who came aboard could splice, steer the ship. They were easily as good as any sailor and some of them, some of the earlier ABs we used to pick up were a long way better than our own.' 9 Kru engaged at Freetown filled specific positions as ordinary and able-bodied seamen on deck, and as firemen and trimers below deck.10 There is little evidence to suggest that many African ratings ever succeeded in rising to officer status before the Second World War, though one or two did. Instead, Kru and other West Africans were confined to those positions that might be labelled unsuitable for European crews, for example, the heavy manual work of firemen in the stokehold, or the more menial jobs on deck.

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ETHNIC LABOUR A N D BRITISH IMPERIAL T R A D E

On West African runs by the end of the nineteenth century West African seamen came to dominate specific departments, especially those below deck. The general increased use of foreign seamen on British vessels became the subject of both public and Parliamentary concern in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In particular the seamen's union - The National Sailor's and Firemen's Union - held strong views on the employment of all foreign labour and campaigned vigorously to restrict this. In a petition to the then Prime Minister - Henry Campbell Bannerman - in 1906, British seamen complained of the cheapness of foreign sailors and firemen, who were seemingly doing British sailors out of a job.11 The Union's campaign before the First World War was mainly focused on Asian seamen - Indian and Chinese - who, like West Africans, were paid lower wages and endured inferior conditions. Whilst the campaign was less vociferous with reference to West Africans, perhaps due to their numerical smallness vis-à-vis Chinese and Indian, nevertheless white seamen in ports such as Liverpool had refused to work alongside them.12 Moreover, West Africans in Liverpool and elsewhere had found it difficult to (a) find work aboard another ship after they had been discharged, and (b) find shore employment.13 The resulting high levels of unemployment among West African and other colonial seamen led to a Parliamentary Inquiry in 1910 - T h e Committee on Distressed Colonial and Indian Subjects'. This highlighted the distress of colonial seamen, and found that approximately three in five of 'distressed' black people were seamen.14 Discrimination was identified as a main factor here. 15 Lunn has pointed out the ambiguous status of Black seamen generally before the First World War. Thus whilst West Africans undoubtedly endured racial hostility and often could not find work because of this, at the same time their relatively small numbers compared, for example, with Chinese meant that the latter became the main focus of hostility. In addition, as Lunn has pointed out, racist attitudes within the organized labour movement were indicative of the wider attitudes of British society and at this particular time the idea of a 'Yellow Peril' was gaining much ground not only at home but within the empire itself.16 Such prevailing ideas inevitably penetrated the arena of organized labour. In contrast, The National Sailors' and Firemens' Union supported a strike by Black seamen in Cardiff in 1911, illustrative, Lunn argues, of the uneven nature of racist attitudes in this period.17 The outbreak of war in 1914 mopped up much of the labour surplus that had developed. West African seamen and others were employed extensively on shore, in the armed forces, and on merchant ships because of the severe labour shortages. Black seamen were often used to replace those foreign seamen who were discharged because they were from

WEST AFRICAN SEAMEN IN LIVERPOOL 188()s-1960s

27

'enemy' countries. Thus between 1915 and 1917 labour recruitment from the empire increased. Racism did not disappear. Black troops, for example, were kept in separate units.18 One positive development during the war was that where foreign seamen were employed, the seamen's union insisted on these being paid the same rates as British seamen, though it would be difficult to see this as altruism. After the war much larger numbers were competing for fewer jobs intensifying hostility towards West Africans. The trade unions campaigned for the employment of white British workers first, before blacks.19 There was an erroneous belief among many that black workers had not taken the same risks as white workers during the war. Yet Elder Dempster, who employed most African seamen, had endured a high casualty rate of both men and ships, and many of these seamen were employed in the engine rooms, a particularly vulnerable part of the ship. Resentful of such allegations, many black war veterans responded by displaying their military service ribbons.20 Unemployment became a major issue as demobilized soldiers, both black and white, competed for work. World slump and the decline of Britain's old staple industries, including shipping, had dramatic social consequences, especially in the casualized labour markets of the port towns and cities. High unemployment, increased expectations of post-war Britain and broken promises of improved social conditions, encapsulated in Lloyd George's 'homes fit for heroes' statement, created a potent mixture of resentment and anger among working-class whites. A scapegoat was easily found among colonial blacks who were increasingly visible in many UK ports, many having been demobbed there after the war. Such conditions formed the background to a series of riots that broke out in 1919 in all the major ports, including Liverpool. They involved serious physical attacks on African and West Indian seamen and their properties, and in a number of cases led to the death of colonial seamen. In the aftermath, white seamen declined to sail with black seamen, a policy supported by their union. This resulted in large numbers of black seamen being thrown out of work.21 Thus the Morning Post, commenting on the Liverpool riots, said in June 1919: 'Last week more than 100 blackmen were at work, but in consequence of the disturbances, none is now employed, and they are thrown on unemployment allowance.'22 The shipping industry itself was in crisis, with an out-of-date merchant fleet and increased overseas competition for a share of a declining market. In Liverpool the majority of unemployed West Africans had come as firemen and trimers on Elder Dempster ships. Half of those registered as unemployed were housed in Elder Dempster's 'African Hostel' on Upper Stanhope Street, Liverpool, and were kept here at a rate of 6d per night until a vacancy on a ship could be found. Some were fortunate enough to

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be engaged with a shore gang working on Elder Dempster ships whilst in port. However, their meagre earnings of 21/- per week, excluding food and lodgings, led a police report on black seamen in Liverpool to comment: 'how they managed to eke out a living at the present high cost of food, I am at a loss to understand.' 23 Many could not prove their status because of the absence of registration in their home country. This included Sierra Leonean Kru who were in fact British subjects but were classed as aliens under the 1925 Aliens Order and could be deported. Even British women who had married 'aliens' were classed similarly and lost their right to vote. This was not reversed until 1948.24 It was alleged by the Home Office in 1926 that almost all West African seamen found in Britain had come here on Elder Dempster ships. But these were not required to register under the Special Restriction Order of 1925, but with a separate arrangement made by Elder Dempster where a register was kept of West African natives serving on these ships.25 This arrangement was in force in both Liverpool and Hull, and had apparently existed for a considerable time. The specific object of this registration system was to ensure that those employed with Elder Dempster remained in the service of that company, and did not drift into other employment where their presence might cause resentment. It was also hoped that this would guard against claims for unemployment insurance by West Africans. The implications of this registration were far-reaching. It enabled the immigration authorities in Liverpool to have greater control over West African crews and worked to eliminate what was seen as competition for jobs between black and white workers. Such registration also ensured that West African seafarers found it more difficult to settle in Britain. Elder Dempster suggested to the Home Office that 'satisfactory workers' be allowed leave to land for discharge at Liverpool, irrespective of whether they carried identity or service certificates, whilst 'The work-shys and troublesome men would be reported to the Home Office and refused leave to land and taken back as passengers and not on articles.' It was hoped this would reduce the number of men living ashore in Liverpool, since feelings against black people generally still ran high. According to the Home Office: 'Their presence in the UK is socially very undesirable and gives rise to "trouble". The police are very anxious to get rid of all except a handful who have acquired permanent domicile.'26 Elder Dempster was keen to offer its services to the Home Office and volunteered to repatriate West Africans who had joined the forces or who continued to serve in their ships. The Seamen's Union were represented on the Repatriation Committees formed in the major ports.27 The experience of West African seamen in the 1920s and 1930s illustrates the precarious socio-economic status they held whilst in the employ

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29

of Elder Dempster. Thus West African seamen suffered higher levels of unemployment than white crews because they were mainly confined to those positions more vulnerable to unemployment, that is, engineroom work. In addition, restrictions imposed on their employment on shore further aggravated the situation. II Unemployment throughout the inter-war years was especially high in the port towns and cities. Black seamen in Liverpool continued to be disadvantaged in the competition for jobs and many resigned themselves to the idea that they would be the Mast to be hired and the first to be fired'.28 They experienced long spells of unemployment, punctuated by short periods of work. By the early 1930s, unemployment among registered seamen generally in Britain was one in three.29 The slump in shipping was widespread and included unemployment among officers and engineers. But categories such as fireman and trimers experienced higher unemployment than, say, among stewards. The former constituted the highest single category by 1934 with an estimated 38.5 per cent of fireman and trimers unemployed. The changeover from coal to oil burning vessels precipitated large reductions in these categories of workers, where West African and other black seamen were concentrated. 30 The Caradog Jones investigation in 1938 - The Economic Status of Coloured Families in the port of Liverpool - highlighted the problem of unemployment and poverty among black families in Britain. It reported that black seamen could find few opportunities outside shipping, shore jobs being closed to them because of racism and their lack of skills. The bulk of those receiving unemployment insurance were West African born, who had lived here for 20 years or more and were employable. By 1939 nearly ten years on from the last survey, economic conditions for black people had worsened. Only 40 per cent of black seamen's families were in receipt of any earnings compared with 75 per cent of white seamen's families. In addition 75 per cent of blacks were in receipt of unemployment benefit or public assistance, while the corresponding figure for whites was 34 per cent.31 The accusation then that black people were 'doing others out of jobs' could not be substantiated in the light of the evidence. The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 cleared the surplus of both black and white seafaring labour in port cities such as Liverpool, since all available labour was needed for the war effort. The war even precipitated increased immigration from the West Indies, colonial seamen were actively recruited for work on both ship and shore.

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ETHNIC LABOUR A N D BRITISH IMPERIAL T R A D E

Wage differentials between European and African articled seamen continued both during and after the war. (European seamen received wage increases of £9 a month, whilst Africans on Freetown articles received £5 and those taken from Lagos £3.) The immediate period after the war until the 1950s saw unemployment again becoming a major problem. This was particularly a cause for concern among black seamen on Merseyside. The conversion of ships from coal to oil burning exacerbated the situation. According to Jenks, by 1950-51, 25 per cent of unemployed black seamen became redundant to the manpower needs of the Merchant Navy.32 In 1950, the Liverpool Advisory Committee of the Welfare Department of the Colonial Office submitted a number of recommendations. Included in these was the issue of repatriation of discharged seamen, who had no work to go to either on shore or at sea. It also recommended that no man be discharged from the Merchant Navy without the completion of repatriation arrangements or the offer of shore work. Finally the Committee suggested that the requirements of the Merchant Navy should be considered with regard to colonial seamen, recommending that a definite number be fixed and retained. A conference organized by the Colonial Office was arranged to discuss the future of unemployed colonial seamen. The main thrust of the conference centred around the recommendations of the Liverpool Advisory Committee, namely, that the colonial seamen should only be discharged if they agreed to take up shore work or be repatriated." This became official government policy, with the additional issue of fixed numbers of men required at each port. Those unable to find sea work were strongly recommended to take shore work or be repatriated, since the prospect of seagoing employment was limited.34 The Liverpool Daily Post by June 1951 claimed with some confidence the success of the above measures: 'One of Merseyside's most difficult employment problems - that of placing coloured seamen in shore or seagoing jobs is rapidly being solved'. As the decline of the old stable industries continued, especially in areas such as shipping, the simultaneous rise in the service and white-collar sectors continued to grow. Such developments opened the door to those West African seamen settled here, since now it was more acceptable for blacks generally to work owing to these labour shortages. There are several reasons why West African seamen in Liverpool took up shore employment in the 1940s and 1950s. Perhaps the major reason was because of the increased opportunities here and the diminishing opportunities in shipping. As already stated unemployment among West African seamen on Merseyside was continually increasing, and therefore many sought shore employment where they could. Another contributory

WEST AFRICAN SEAMEN IN LIVERPOOL 1880s-1960s

31

factor for finding shore work was the fact that many had married locally and wished to stay with wives and children. Yet by the 1960s many West African seamen in Liverpool went back to sea when a general upturn came in shipping, even though the shipping industry had shrunk and manning levels with it. West African Kru seamen in Freetown now found themselves competing for work with other local ethnic groups (Mende, Temne and Creole) and from seamen from other countries. But whilst the Kru no longer monopolized sea work as they had done before the war, seafaring continued to be their main employment as long as the demand for West African labour continued. Conclusion The experience of West African Kru seamen employed on Elder Dempster ships has been shaped and determined by their association with British shipping in West Africa. Various 'push' and 'pull' factors can be identified. Kru seamen from Freetown were 'pushed' into maritime employment because of their own particular circumstances. These included the lack of opportunities for waged employment in Liberia (their original homeland) and the need to earn 'bridewealth' in preparation for marriage. However, it was the external 'pull' factors that appear to have had the greatest influence. West African Kru seamen were 'pulled' into a capitalist world economy where colonial transient seafarers provided a pool of cheap, reliable and hard-working labour, that was slow to organize, and which could seemingly be easily disciplined. The socio-economic position of these seamen on Elder Dempster ships was flexible enough to fit in with the needs of British shipping interests. In Freetown a Kru seafaring population was cultivated from as far back as 1816 when a Kru Reservation was set up by the British Colonial Authorities. Here an abundance of seafaring labour could be drawn upon as and when it was needed. West African Kru seamen were engaged for up to two years at any one time with no obligation in the pre-Second World War period to pay them unemployment benefit, or provide them with further work. Such seamen were confined to occupationally specific roles - mainly those in the enginerooms deemed unsuitable and undesirable for white labour in the tropics. Their experience of unemployment throughout the inter-war years was partly due to the fact that the very positions of firemen and stokers in which they were concentrated, were hardest hit in the slump of the 1930s. But it was not only this. West African seamen's economic position was also determined by 'race' and racism. Thus the slump in shipping in the 1920s and 1930s hit West African and other colonial seamen hardest because they were confined to the most vulnerable jobs down in the

32

ETHNIC LABOUR A N D BRITISH IMPERIAL T R A D E

enginerooms. In addition, white seamen often refused to work with them on ship, and discriminatory practices ashore meant they found it difficult to find work here. West African Kru seamen constituted a form of 'reserve army labour' that could be wheeled in and out of the British economy as conditions dictated. Parallels can be drawn with the labour needs of the British economy generally in the post-war period. Thus, whilst West African seafarers were different in some ways from Afro-Caribbean migrants of the post-war era in that the former were transients, there were also similarities. Both provided sections of the British economy with cheap unskilled sources of labour and both experienced racist hostility at state level through immigration laws (1920 and 1925 Aliens Orders for West Africans and the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act for all black immigrants, with Afro-Caribbeans being the largest group), as well as at the level of organized labour as seen through the actions of the Seamen's Union. Indeed the main experience of West African seamen through this period has been one of unemployment and poverty, despite the allegations of the seamen's union that blacks were taking the jobs of whites. Where West African seamen were employed both before and during the First World War, and throughout the Second World War, their contribution has gone unrecognized. Thus Walvin states: " . . . as in so many other respects, the contribution of the black colonies to the task of maintaining Britain's vital sea-links in times of war has been virtually ignored'.35 The experience of West African seamen in the employ of Elder Dempster has on the whole been one of continuity in terms of hostile white responses, and discontinuity in the area of employment.

NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

CSO Open Policy Files Mise 1929, Z/33/29. Nautical Magazine, 'Memoirs on the Trade to the West Coast of Africa' (1855), p.408. A. Gifford, W. Brown and R. Bundey, Loosen the Shackles (London, 1989), p.28. CSOZ/41/37. HO45/11897/332187. Elder Dempster and Co. had created and now controlled almost all the lighterage facilities on West African coast, and is doing so controlled cargoes. The use of lighters and surf boats along much of this coast was the only way cargo could be handled from ship to shore in the absence of natural harbours. Elder Dempster later came to operate mail, passenger and cargo services from the UK and managed to increase its fleet in 1879 from 21 ships to 109 ships in 1909. In addition, Elder Dempster and Co. founded the Bank of British West Africa. See F. Hyde, Liverpool and the Meresey (Newton Abbot, 1971), p.108. G. Chandler, Liverpool Shipping - A Short History (London: Phoenix House/Letter Press, 1960), pp. 175,177. 7. FO 47/301898. 8. FO 47/301898.

WEST AFRICAN SEAMEN IN LIVERPOOL 1880s-1960s

33

9. Captain L. James interview conducted by T. Lane. 10. From shipping articles for the 1890s up until the Second World War. The Kru ethnic group appeared to dominate this work, though other groups could also be found here, such as Mende andTemne engaged from Freetown. 11. E.T. Taplin, Liverpool Dockers and Seamen 1870-1890 Occasional Papers in Economic and Social History, No.6, University of Hull Publications, 1974 and F.J. Lindop, 'A History of Seamen's Trade Unionism to 1929', M.Phil (University of London 1972). Journal of Commerce, 19 Feb. 1906. 12. M. Banton, The Coloured Quarter (London, 1955), p.32; P. Fryer, Staying Power (London, 1984), p.295. 13. Fryer, Staying Power. 14. Fryer, ibid., p.295; also J. Walvin, Black and White - The Negro and English Society 1555-1945 (London, 1973), pp.202-3. 15. Banton, Coloured Quarter, p.32. 16. K. Lunn, The Seamen's Union and "Foreign" Workers on British and Colonial Shipping, 1890-1939', Labour History Review, Vol.53 (1988), 10. 17. Lunn,ibid.,p.21. 18. P. Gordon and D. Reilly, "Guestworkers of the Sea: racism in British Shipping" Race imdC/ass, Vol.XXVIII, No.2 (Autumn 1986-87), p.75. Also Walvin, op. cit., p.203. 19. Banton, op. cit., p.33. 20. J. Jenkinson, "The 1919 Race Riots in Britain: Their Background and Consequences" PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh 1987. 21. CO 323/848. 22. Cited in Banton, op. cit., p. 126. 23. Police Report HO 45/11017/3779691919. 24. For requirements for registration under the 1925 Order see HO 45/11897/332087. Also R. Ramdin, The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain (Aldershot, 1987), pp.107,491 ; K. Little, Negroes in Britain-A Study of Race Relations in English Society (London, 1948; revised 1972). 25. HO45/12314, No.476/761, Jan. 1926. 26. HO 45/11897/332087, Immigration Officers Report 1921. 27. Gordon and Reilly, op. cit., p.76. 28. Banton, op. cit., p.47. 29. Little,op.cit.,p.89. 30. D. Caradog Jones, The Society Survey of Merseyside, Vol.2 (University of Liverpool, 1934),pp.87-92. 31. See Report on The Economic Status of Coloured Families in the Port of Liverpool' (University of Liverpool, 1940). 32. A.H. Jenks, 'Continuity of Employment in the Merchant Navy', M. A. thesis, University of Liverpool (1953), p.77. Also see Liverpool Daily Post, 1951. 33. Liverpool Daily Post, 11 Oct. 1950. 34. Liverpool Daily Post, 20 Nov. 1950. 35. Walvin, op. cit., p.212.

The Role of Seamen's Agents in the Migration for Employment of Arab Seafarers in the Early Twentieth Century DICK LAWLESS The seamen's agents at Aden played a central role in the life of Arab seafarers in Britain in the early twentieth century. The majority of these seamen did not settle permanently at British ports and economically and socially they remained a part of their own village communities in Yemen. Through the services provided by the seamen's agents at Aden and their local agents, Arab seafarers were able to maintain contact with their families and village communities at home. After the First World War, when the British authorities imposed new restrictions and regulations, the seamen's agents provided a series of highly organized networks through which Arab seamen and many new recruits to seafaring were able to enter Britain illegally. I The majority of Arab seafarers employed on British ships did not settle permanently at British ports but were temporary sojourners who returned to their home villages when they had acquired sufficient savings and were replaced by other Arabs, in some cases by members of their own family, village or tribe. They had only limited contact with British society; on board ship they worked with other Arabs and when ashore they stayed at one of the Arab boarding houses run by a fellow countryman. Even though he was living and working a long way from home, the Arab seafarer remained a member of his own village community and an integral part of its society and economy. Existing research on Arab seafarers has focused primarily on their interaction with British society and institutions. The internal organization and dynamics of Arab seafaring communities in Britain and the political, social and economic relations with their homeland in South-west Arabia have been neglected. This study is based on research undertaken for a project on Arab seamen in Britain during the early twentieth century, supported by the World of Islam Trust, entitled 'From Taiz to Tyneside: An Arab Community in the North-east of England1, to be published by the University of Exeter Press in February 1995.

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35

This article examines one of the central figures in the life of the Arab seafarer, the seamen's agent. Through the services provided by seamen's agents at Aden and their local agents at European ports, Arab seafarers were able to maintain contact with their families and village communities at home. After the First World War when new restrictions and regulations were imposed which threatened to disrupt the pattern of chain migration established since the late nineteenth century, it is argued that seamen's agents provided a series of highly organized networks through which Arab seamen and the many new recruits to seafaring were able to enter Britain illegally. II Arab seafarers were engaged as firemen and trimmers on European steamers calling at the British-held port of Aden in south-west Arabia from the middle of the nineteenth century and by the end of the century their recruitment was well-established. ' The first company to recruit Arab seamen at Aden was the Compagnie des Service Maritimes des Messageries Impériales of France, the predecessor of the Messageries Maritimes Steam Navigation Company, the largest shipping company in the world at that time and a fierce rival of the British Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company (P&O) on many eastern routes. 2 By 1875 Dutch, Italian, Austro-Hungarian and German steamers were also engaging Arabs at Aden 3 but this practice does not appear to have been employed by British shipping companies until the 1880s.4 Indeed the evidence strongly suggests that the majority of Arab seamen recruited at Aden were employed first on foreign vessels and then transferred later to British ships, often at European ports such as Marseilles, the base of the Messageries Maritimes Steam Navigation Company. Arab seamen were also engaged at the nearby French port of Djibouti on the Red Sea, occupied by France in 1884. The outbreak of the First World War marked a significant increase in the number of Arabs shipping from British ports as they filled vacancies created by the transfer of large numbers of British seamen from the merchant marine to the Royal Navy and to other branches of the armed forces. The rapid rise in seamen's wages during the war years must have proved a powerful attraction and encouraged an influx of Arabs to certain British ports. Cardiff emerged as the main centre of Arab seamen in Britain.5 Some Arabs were no doubt already established at ports elsewhere in Europe; others came as new migrants from the Yemen working their passage on one of the steamers calling at Aden or Djibouti, or travelling as passengers. During the war Arabs were engaged at Aden as

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ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

Main areas of origin of the Arab seamen engaged at Aden.

firemen on ships of the Royal Navyft but serious labour shortages at the port resulted in restrictions being imposed in January 1918 on Arab seamen signing on foreign ships.7 The British authorities admitted however that effective control at the port could only be relative. At overseas ports Arab seamen almost always stated that they were born in Aden and were therefore British subjects. The term 'Adenese' seamen, however, came to be used for British subjects (that is, those born in the settlement of Aden), British protected persons (that is, those born in the Aden Protectorate, the border line of which was in some cases

SEAMEN'S AGENTS AND THE MIGRATION OF ARAB SEAFARERS

37

somewhat indeterminate) and aliens (those born in the Yemen, a province of the Ottoman Empire until 1918 when the country passed under Imami rule). In fact, few were born in Aden. It is commonly held that Arab seamen came principally from the Hujariya district of Yemen 8 which lies south of the provincial capital, Taiz, on the border of the West Aden Protectorate and therefore in close proximity to the British-held port. Evidence from documentary sources, however, does not support this view and indicates that Arab seamen came from many parts of the southern highlands of the Yemen and in some cases beyond. 9 Seamen are recorded from the following tribes: Amiri, Haushabi, Shamiri, Audi, Dalali, Badani, Jubani, Dhubhani, Mureisi, Raishi, Areiqi, Shaibi, Khubani, Maqtari, Shari, Shargabi and Sharabi.10 The majority of these tribes (Dalali, Badani, Jubani, Raishi, Mureisi, Audi, Shari, Shaibi and Amiri) live in that part of the southern highlands of Yemen lying between the towns of Ibb, Radaa and al-Baida known as the Central Region {al-Mintaqa al-Wusta) and its extension southwards into the West Aden Protectorate; most of the other tribes (Shamiri, Areiqi, Dhubhani, Maqtari and Sharabi) live in the highland areas around Taiz to the southwest. Only the Dhubhani, Areiqi and Maqtari are tribes of the Hujariya. Seamen are also recorded from tribes in the south-west of the Aden Protectorate (for example, Dubeini) and the northern part of the coastal plain of the Yemen, the Tihama (for example, Mori). The Shamiri, together with the Dalali and Jubani, appear to have been particularly important 'seafaring tribes'. The specialization by migrants from certain tribes in a particular type of employment, though difficult to explain fully, is a common feature of emigration from peasant societies in the Arab world. Most Arab seamen were peasant farmers or the sons of peasant farmers. They came from small villages of a hundred inhabitants or less where the families gained a living by cultivating the terraced fields cut into the steep mountain slopes and by rearing livestock. Many were from families of independent tribesmen who owned and worked their own land. Disputes among them would have been settled by their own sheikhs and aqils according to customary law. Some may have been from families of sharecroppers who farmed land owned by their chiefs. Unlike the Somalis, some of whom already had experience of seafaring on native dhows before they went to work on the steamers, most of the Arabs who engaged as firemen at Aden had not previously worked as seamen; the majority would not even have seen the sea before they arrived at Aden. Of course as firemen they did not really need seafaring experience because their job was to shovel coal into the ship's furnace and keep the steam up to its ordered pressure.

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The southern highlands of the Yemen receive abundant rainfall and are the richest agricultural region in the country. Nevertheless, droughts are a regular pccurrence and, during the second half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century, natural disasters such as drought and famine were aggravated by political instability as the country rose in successive revolts against the Ottoman Turks who had reoccupied the country in 1872. These misfortunes may well have forced some young men from the villages to migrate in search of employment in order to support their families. The port of Aden, where a range of new employment opportunities was opening up at this time offering the prospect of cash wages, must have exerted a powerful attraction. The majority of Arab seafarers were temporary migrants and after a few years working on the steamers they returned to their villages of origin.11 A few seamen, often those who had held the more lucrative position of ship's serang, opened a shop or small business at Aden. But for most of these men, the bulk of their earnings was used to support their families at home. Though they were living and working far from home, the seamen remained an integral part of village society and some of them took a keen interest in the social, economic and religious life of their own communities. Letters exchanged between seamen living in British ports and their families in Yemen discuss how remittances were to be distributed, marriage alliances, the construction of new houses, the state of the harvest, the sale of land and animals, and donations for the upkeep of, and repairs to, the village mosque.12 For those seamen who married and settled down in British ports, the links with village and family in rural Yemen sometimes became weaker, but they were rarely broken. After the First World War and the establishment of Imami rule in Yemen, the oppressive taxation system imposed on villages in the southern highland region may have been a factor in encouraging continued emigration. Seamen who had returned to their villages and had exhausted their savings may have been forced to seek employment again at British ports13 or to nominate another member of the family or tribe to replace them. By this time, the conditions for chain migration had been firmly established, and the high wages earned at British ports and the ease of obtaining ships during the First World War appear to have acted as a powerful magnet throughout the inter-war years, in spite of the restrictions imposed on the entry of Arab seamen into the United Kingdom after 1920. As these restrictions became more stringent in the years following the First World War, this form of migration for employment became increasingly difficult and in many cases migrants had little alternative but to seek entry into Britain illegally.

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39

III The seamen's agents at Aden and their network of local agents at European ports and in the tribal homelands of Yemen played a vitally important role in the migration for employment of Arab seafarers. They advanced money to seamen, and through their agents at European ports, normally Arab boarding house masters, they recovered debts, and arranged to deliver letters and remittances from seamen to their families in Yemen on a commission basis. Seamen returning from Europe would often stay at their agent's house in Aden for a few days before travelling to their home village in Yemen. As Yemen, and indeed the Protectorate, had no banking system at this time and as the postal service and basic communications were rudimentary, the services provided by these agents were the only means by which seamen working overseas could maintain contact with their families and village communities. From the outset, the hiring of Arab seamen at Aden was controlled by brokers, sometimes known as 'ghat serangs' or seamen serangs, who demanded a fee or commission from every man for whom they obtained employment. This commission was sometimes paid on a monthly basis. The ship's serang, the native foreman in charge of the stokehold crew, had to pay a more substantial fee than the ordinary seamen to secure his position and to cover these expenses he in turn extracted a further commission from the seamen under his control. In this way the seamen were caught up in a complex web of bribery and corruption and incurred substantial debts in order to secure employment. Although the British authorities at Aden resolved that no seaman was to be made to pay for obtaining employment and that he was to be protected by the Shipping Master from all exactions, they failed to stamp out these corrupt practices.I4 The origins of the seamen's agents are unclear. There is evidence that at least one of the brokers or 'ghat serang' who brought men to the port for employment as firemen may have fulfilled this role. In May 1919 a petition from Arab seamen to the First Assistant Resident, Aden, in support of Mahamed Nasir AH, one of the two brokers officially licensed by the British authorities, states: We send him our savings which he despatches to our families for their maintenance. He advances them on our account when they are in need and he renders us all possible facilities to encourage us to keep in our respective service . . . We respectfully inform you that Mahamed Nasir AH is a man known by our Arab sheikhs and chiefs to be of an excellent character and good standing. If this statement of his enemies was at all true we are quite sure that our Arab sheikhs would have communicated with you on this subject.15

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Mahamed Nasir Ali also appears to have loaned money to seamen when they were without employment, whereas the Somali, Adan AH, the other licensed broker, maintained that lending money was not one of the duties of a broker. It is possible that, as the number of Arab seamen working overseas increased, these functions came to be carried out by agents who specialized in these services. Some seamen's agents may well have set up in business during the First World War when the shortage of seamen to man British ships, together with a sharp rise in seamen's wages, attracted many new recruits from the Yemen. Those Arabs who were unable to work their passage to Britain would probably have had to borrow money so that they could travel as passengers. The high wages of the war years would also have enabled them to pay off debts and to send money regularly to their families. Certainly by 1920 we know that several seamen's agents were established at Aden16 and in 1928 one of the leading agents, Awad Ahmed Basahi, better known as Al-Hadrami, was described as having been in business there 'since a long time'.17 Al-Hadrami was a wealthy merchant and landlord. He was also involved with Mahamed Nasir Ali in recruiting Yemini labourers or 'coolies' to work at the Messageries Maritimes' coaling station at Diego Suarez in Madagascar1* and it is possible that he first began working as a seamen's agent through his association with the ghat serang, Mahamed Nasir Ali. Other seamen's agents appear to have been shopkeepers and a few had been in business as Arab boarding house keepers at European ports before returning to Aden.19 The names of the following seamen's agents appear in the Aden Residency files in the early 1930s: Mohamed Thabeth Tawahi, Haj Assad Taher, Mohamed Abdu Kavi, Abdulla Al-Haj, Thabeth Thoalla, Thabeth Saleh Thoalla, Awad Ahmed AlHadrami and Mohsen Husain Al-Banna.20 The activities of both AlHadrami and Al-Banna extended beyond Europe to the USA and we know that Al-Banna visited some of his clients there in 1921.2I After the end of the First World War, few Arab seamen were recruited at Aden so there was little work for the brokers.22 The restrictions that had been imposed on Arab seamen leaving Aden in January 1918 were maintained after the war ended. The First Assistant Resident pointed out that this was no longer because these men were needed at Aden but because there was a dearth of employment for them at other ports where they sought work.23 In Britain, the authorities had no wish to see the free and easy recruitment policies of the war years continue. When the war ended there was strong competition for jobs on British ships as white British seamen were discharged from the Royal Navy and demanded their old jobs in the merchant marine. Competition for jobs intensified with the onset of the economic depression of the inter-war years, which was

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particularly marked in the shipping industry which faced intense international competition and declining employment opportunities. In 1920 the Home Office issued an Aliens Order which instructed immigration officers to refuse coloured seamen permission to land in Britain unless they could prove that they were British subjects, or that they were living in Britain or that they had signed on in Britain for a round trip. This restrictive measure was directed primarily at Arab seamen24 who found their claims to be British subjects, claims which had been upheld during the war years when their labour was urgently needed,25 now consistently challenged. Under the terms of the Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order of 1925, also directed at the Arabs, 26 every Arab seaman who could not prove by documentary evidence that he was a British subject, was obliged to register with the police. This legislation effectively reclassified most Arab seafarers as 'coloured aliens' and gave the authorities greater control over those already in the country and more effective powers to restrict entry of others into the country. These restrictions and regulations threatened to disrupt the pattern of chain migration established since the late nineteenth century. When seamen accumulated sufficient savings to return home, it became more difficult for other young men from the same family or tribe to follow them into seafaring. First, there were the restrictions imposed at Aden; second, there was the cost of the journey to Britain now that few seamen were being hired at Aden itself; and third, there was the need to evade immigration controls at British ports. In these new and more difficult circumstances the evidence, though fragmentary, indicates that the seamen's agents came to play a key role in assisting new customers who wished to seek employment at British ports and those seamen who, having exhausted their savings since returning home, wished to resume their employment on British ships. Throughout the inter-war period there appears to have been no shortage of potential new recruits to seafaring.27 In addition to their existing services, the seamen's agents advanced money to cover the cost of the journey to Britain, and their local agents at the main transit points along the route arranged passages for Arabs without passports. In this way the seamen's agents maintained their businesses by constantly replenishing their stock of customers.28 Good profits were made by some of the agents and there is evidence of strong competition between them for customers. It proved relatively easy to avoid the restrictions imposed at Aden itself and the route followed by most Arabs who sought to enter Britain illegally began at the nearby French port of Djibouti.29 In November 1919 the British authorities at Aden stated that they were not permitting seamen to go to Djibouti 'as they stow away to Port Said (Egypt) and

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become a nuisance'.30 Having been refused permission to travel direct to Djibouti another route was found. As there were no passport restrictions between Aden and Britain's Somaliland Protectorate, large numbers of men travelled to Zaila in Somaliland and then walked to Djibouti. An Aden police memorandum dated 1920 reported: I made enquiries in this direction and was given to understand that Arabs do go to Zaila in good numbers and then go by foot to Djibouti to get employment as seamen on M & M Co's [Messageries Maritimes] boats passing through Djibouti. I made enquiries with Messrs C D . Bros [Cowasjee Dinshaw] and found that in the last four voyages to Zaila 186 passengers booked their passages for Zaila. From the register of outgoing passengers I found that 204 Arabs have left for Zaila in the last four voyages at an average of 50 per week. From enquiries with seamen's agents I learn that most of them were seamen going to Djibouti to sign on M & M Co's steamers.31 Others no doubt travelled across the Red Sea by native dhows which the authorities admitted were hard to control. It was reported that all the seamen's agents appointed local agents at Djibouti who were able to arrange passages to Europe for seamen who did not possess passports, thus evading passport regulations at Aden. Some men travelled on from Djibouti to Suez and Port Said in Egypt, presumably in the hope of obtaining work on British ships calling at these ports. However, the majority took one of the regular Messageries Maritimes steamers to Marseilles either as members of the crew, passage workers or deck passengers. The French steamship company did not insist on the men holding passports but accepted their British Discharge Books or Police Identity Cards. There was an active traffic in seamen's discharge papers which could be used by new customers to establish their claim to previous service on British ships.32 Although there is evidence that some Arabs without passports were turned back at Marseilles, many appear to have encountered no restrictions there. 33 Some of the local agents at Marseilles, probably Arab boarding house keepers, had established good relations with the French police and it seems likely that bribes were paid to ensure that their customers were allowed to land. At Marseilles the local agents of the seamen's agents assisted new arrivals to make the next part of their journey. From Marseilles the men proceeded by train to Rouen or Le Havre on the northern coast of France. Some travelled on as passengers to Southampton, while others remained in France until arrangements could be made to get them on board a ship with an Arab crew sailing for

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Britain. There were numerous British weekly cargo vessels trading between northern France and the north-east coast and Bristol Channel ports. The men were either smuggled across as stowaways with the help of the Arab crew or with the knowledge of the ship's officers who received a monetary consideration.34 On landing they were taken in by one of the Arab boarding house masters at South Shields or Cardiff which became the two major centres where illegally landed Arab seamen gathered. A man landing at South Shields might go to Cardiff to evade detection and there was a similar movement from Cardiff to South Shields. Until the introduction of the rota system of registration for Arab seamen in August 1930, Arab boarding house masters were able to find work on weekly boats sailing to northern France and the Low Countries, the so-called 'Home and Coasting Trades', for those Arabs who landed irregularly. Unlike steamers engaged on foreign trade, the weekly boats were not required to engage or discharge their crew at the Board of Trade Offices as they were in the 'Home Trade Limits' and simply furnished a return to the Board of Trade every six months. The large number of these boats made strict regulation of their crews difficult. In November 1920 it was claimed that 70 per cent of British steamers from the north-east coast employed in the Home and Coasting Trades were manned by Arabs in the stokehold, many of whom had entered the country illegally.35 A memorandum from the Aliens Department of the Home Office in 1924 confirmed that Arab seamen who had landed illegally found 'an easy place of refuge on ships in the Home and Coasting Trades'. When these men had served for some time on a home trade or coasting vessel, they returned to Yemen with their savings, handing over their sea papers to some newcomer who used them as proof of previous employment so that the business continued.36 Foreign vessels and vessels in the coasting trade were not covered by the Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order of 1925 so that men who had been recently smuggled into the country could still get a footing in sea service. Despite the restrictions imposed on the migration for employment of Arab seamen, the number of Arabs who entered Britain irregularly certainly equalled the number of those departing. A memorandum from the Immigration Office dated January 1929 admitted that Arab seamen were continuing to arrive at UK ports in considerable numbers from ports in northern France and Belgium and that the authorities were powerless to stop the flow because if they were rejected both the French and the Belgians were now refusing to readmit them.37 In July 1930 the Chief Superintendent of the Mercantile Marine Office, North Shields, estimated that there were approximately 600 Arab seamen ashore in South Shields and commented:

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The large total of Arabs at South Shields may be due, to a large extent to the depression, but I fear these men continue to land in the country surreptitiously. A prominent Arab at South Shields (who by the way is alleged to be a Turk) told me only yesterday that a considerable number of new Arabs had reached South Shields recently having entered through Southampton. I can well believe it: for whereas in 1922 when I took a census of the Arab population there, I found a total of 630. As the Board will remember, 100 of these accepted repatriation, and I found that within six months another 300 disappeared; and in spite of deaths, and the restrictive operation of the Aliens Immigration Orders, the total stands at, or near the original figure . . . The figures are of course approximate as the numbers vary from day to day, but they may be accepted as reliable.38 IV A unique insight into the activities of the seamen's agents and their rivalries is provided by a case which came before the Aden authorities in 1928.39 On 3 July 1928 Abdul Kader Ba Hamed of Crater contacted the Aden authorities and handed them a telegram from one Saleh al Katoo at Djibouti to a merchant of Crater named Ahmed Saleh Tawala. The telegram stated that 30 passengers had embarked at Aden on the SS Voyron and continued to Marseilles. Ba Hamed explained that the Arabs were from the interior and that through the services of Abdalla Ahmed Basahi, a seamen's agent at Aden, and Abdul Malek Nagi, one of his local agents, these men had been issued with permits from the French Consul at Aden for Djibouti. They left Aden by the Messageries Maritimes steamer SS Voyron on 30 June but instead of disembarking at Djibouti continued their journey to Marseilles without passports. Ba Hamed claimed that Abdul Malek Nagi was very friendly with the French police at Marseilles and that the men were allowed to land there even though they had no passports. The men paid 130 rupees each to Abdalla Ahmed Basahi who gave a bribe to the captain of the ship with the assistance of the Messageries Maritimes agent at Aden. The Assistant Resident, Aden, who was in charge of police, took the matter up with the French Consul, expressing his concern that Arabs may have found ways of evading passport regulations at Aden. In reply the French Consul maintained that he never issued permits to any destination other than Djibouti to anyone who did not have a passport, but promised to make enquiries at Djibouti. The Assistant Resident also contacted the British Consul General, Marseilles, asking him to take necessary action

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as the Aden authorities did not hold themselves responsible for the men's behaviour at Marseilles or expenses of their repatriation. He understood that it was not the first time that Arab seamen had proceeded to Marseilles via Djibouti by paying passages to the captains of the Messageries steamers thus evading passport regulations at Aden. On 12 July an informant, presumably Ba Hamed, told the Aden authorities that a French steamer, the SS Ber de St Pierre, leaving Aden for Djibouti the next day, would have many Arab passengers for Djibouti but that 13 of them were expected to proceed to Marseilles. The informant stated that bona fide passage tickets for Djibouti indicated the cost, 7 rupees, whereas others did not, the cost being entered on board ship later on. The Assistant Resident instructed the Harbour Police to place a plain clothes policeman on board the ship in order to find out how many Arabs did not disembark at Djibouti. Head Constable Kassem Salem travelled on the steamer and reported that the 47 deck passengers included 34 Arab 'coolies' from the interior recruited by Messageries Maritimes for the French colonies, ten Arab seamen, an Indian named Ali Mohamed Sidick, whose brother kept a boarding house for Arabs at Marseilles, and a clerk of the seamen's agent Awad Ahmed Basahi named Mohamed Hasson Ansli. The ten seamen wanted to go to Marseilles as stowaways through the assistance of the serang but despite promises of payment the serang refused to help them and the men therefore landed at Djibouti. From his enquiries at Djibouti the constable confirmed that seamen with only discharge certificates were allowed to proceed to France. The Aden authorities commented that it was possible that Ali Mohamed Sidick and Basahi's clerk had gone to Djibouti to arrange for the shipment of the ten Arabs but that the serang may have suspected that they were being watched and refused to co-operate. The Assistant Resident wrote to the British Vice-Consul at Djibouti asking him to suggest any means by which Arab seamen could be prevented from proceeding to France without proper passports and requesting the assistance of the French authorities at Djibouti in this matter. On 10 August the French Consul at Aden wrote to the Assistant Resident confirming that the 30 Arab passengers who had departed from Aden on the SS Voyron had contrived to remain on board the steamer at Djibouti and had continued their journey to Marseilles but as they did not have the correct papers the seamen were refused permission to land at Marseilles and were sent back to Djibouti. In a letter to the Political Resident, Aden, dated 11 August, the British Consul General at Marseilles reported that he had received information from a French woman who kept a boarding house for Arabs there that three Arabs and a youth had obtained passages to Marseilles on the SS Voyron without passports with

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the assistance of the seamen's agent Al-Hadrami. On their arrival at Marseilles the three Arabs were refused permission to land but the youth was allowed to land on the grounds that he was a minor and that his father was living at Marseilles. The father claimed to possess a British passport but had failed to produce the document. From enquiries carried out by the police at Crater, the district of Aden where many seamen's agents were based, Inspector Abdul Rahim Khan concluded that this whole affair was the result of quarrels and rivalries between some of the seamen's agents. He reported in a confidental memorandum to the Assistant Resident that Awad Ahmed Basahi, better known as Al-Hadrami, well-known seamen's agent at Aden, had employed Najee Saleh Al Tolaa alias Mohamed Ahmed Ad-Dalali, an Arab boarding house keeper of 243 Bute Street, Cardiff, as his agent there and one Salem Ahmed Al-Koothoo as his agent at Djibouti. The two men assisted Al-Hadrami in securing passages, delivering letters and receiving remittances on a commission basis. But about a year before some unpleasantness had occurred between them and Al-Hadrami had given up doing business with the other two men. In May 1928 Al-Hadrami had left Aden for Europe to recover debts from seamen in France, Belgium and England leaving his younger brother Abdulla Ahmed Basahi to look after the business in Aden. After his quarrel with Al-Hadrami, Najee Saleh Al Tolaa decided to set up his own seamen's agency and sent one brother, Thabeth Saleh Tolaa, to run the agency at Aden and another, Ahmed Saleh Tolaa, to their native country, Dalai in Yemen. The Dalali were one of the important 'seafaring tribes'. Arab seamen who had returned home and wished to go back to Europe contacted Ahmed Saleh Tolaa who sent them to his brother Thabeth Saleh in Aden who lent them money for the journey. They travelled to Djibouti where Saleh Ahmed Al-Koothoo arranged their passage by Messageries steamer to Marseilles as he had done for AlHadrami. The new agency was financed by Najee Saleh Al Tolaa and, although the business prospered, he failed to cripple the trade and business of his former employer, Al-Hadrami. Najee Saleh Al Tolaa therefore decided to put up the informant Ba Hamed with a telegram from Djibouti and the information that Abdulla Ahmed Basahi and Abdul Malek Naji were smuggling seamen into Europe without passports in order to injure Abdulla Ahmed Basahi's credit in the eyes of seafaring customers. His enquiries had revealed that Abdulla Ahmed Basahi had sent ten seamen by the SS Voyron to Djibouti on 30 June 1928 after obtaining permits from the French consul; at Djibouti the men were sent to Ali Ahmed Saleh Shumai, the new agent appointed by Basahi to replace

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Saleh Ahmed Al-Koothoo, who helped them to secure passage to Marseilles. Inspector Khan commented that this was an old procedure which all the local seamen's agents resorted to 'since a long time'. As Najee Saleh Al Tolaa and his brothers were subjects of the Imam and, therefore, aliens, they could not come forward themselves and so arranged for Ba Hamed, a British subject, to come forward as the informant. According to the police, Ba Hamed had been deported from Marseilles about four months before due to some quarrel with Abdul Malek Nagi who was evidently responsible for reporting him to the French police. Inspector Khan concluded that all of these seamen's agents were motivated by self-interest. A note by the Assistant Resident commented that it was clear from the report that Arabs were proceeding from Aden to Europe without proper passports. However, the affair did not end there. On 29 October 1928 the Aden authorities received the following letter from a Mohamed Ahmed, no.l Sophia Street, Docks, Cardiff, dated 21 September 1928: I most humbly and respectfully beg to state that a man named Owad Ahmad El Hadrami who residing at 201 Grain Bazaar, Aden came from Marseilles on behalf of Imam Yehia Zaide of Aden interior to instruct all Arabs that the British wanted to capture their country in interior Aden. From Marseilles he came to London, Cardiff, South Shields and Hull all in England. He instructed to all Arab seamen that there is a war between the Imam Yehia Zaide and the British. He made a grand speech in no 1 Sophia Street, Docks, Cardiff to Arabs and showed the letter of Imam Yehia Zaide he had with him and which requested all Arabs to help Imam Yehia Zaide with money. They all helped him and collected a reasonable amount. He will be expected very shortly at Aden and all money goes through him to Imam Yehia as he is corresponding with him. He came to the above places on the excuse that he is receiving money from the seamen because he is an agent for them. He received all money from different places and will change them into dollars and send them to Imam Yehia. I therefore request if your honour would kindly consider the matter and attack in his shop or on his arrival to Aden where you will find all correspondence with the Imam pertaining to the war. I am informing your honour as I am a British subject and will die on the British flag. Hope to be excused for trespassing on your valuable time. I beg to remain Sir, Your most obedient servant. The Superintendent of Police at Aden gave instructions by oral order

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that secret inquiries were to be made about Awad Ahmed Basahi alias Al-Hadrami who had recently returned to Aden from England. To understand the implications of the letter it should be noted that the Imam Yahya had ambitions to recapture those lands which his ancestors had once ruled as part of a 'Greater Yemen'. These claims included the British port of Aden and the hinterland tribes who had been brought under British protection during the late nineteenth and early years of the twentieth century. In 1919 the Imam's forces had invaded and occupied parts of the Western Protectorate. Prolonged negotiations failed to secure a solution to the dispute between the Imam and the British over the future of Aden and the protectorate, and in 1928 the RAF attacked targets across the Yemen border and restored most of the former boundary agreed with the Turks in 1905. The conflicting claims of the Imam and the British were not reconciled, but in 1934 both parties agreed to maintain the existing frontier situation and the Imam withdrew his remaining forces from the protectorate. Inspector Abdul Rahim Khan reported on 20 October that his enquiries had revealed that the letter was written by Najee Saleh Al Tolaa, alias Mohamed Ahmed, who kept an Arab boarding house in Bute Street, Cardiff and was yet another attempt to discredit his former employer and rival. According to Inspector Khan, Najee Saleh Al Tolaa had spread rumours against Al-Hadrami among Arab seamen in Cardiff in order to damage his rival's business and to win over Al-Hadrami's customers there. He had succeeded in damaging Al-Hadrami's reputation and this had compelled Al-Hadrami to leave Aden for Europe in May 1928 where he had succeeded in retrieving his reputation and winning back his former customers to whom he advanced thousands of pounds. When this attempt failed, Najee Saleh Al Tolaa resorted to a dirty tricks campaign to turn the Aden authorities against Al-Hadrami, hence the letter accusing AlHadrami of acting as an emissary of Imam Yahya of the Yemen. Inspector Khan stated that Al-Hadrami had been the target of a number of these attacks. Although the police had intercepted his mail for some time nothing incriminating or treasonable had been discovered. Both Al-Hadrami and his father were born in Aden though the family was originally from the Hadramaut in the East Aden Protectorate. He was a man of independent means and a landlord connected with respectable and wealthy Adenese families such as K.B. Sk: Mohamed Bazaraa and Mohamed Orner Okba, who were landlords and merchants. Inspector Khan concluded that such a man would not stoop to the treasonable crime of helping a foreign potentate with money or of encouraging Arab seamen to support the Imam's cause. The allegations made in the letter were groundless. This was another one of the dirty tricks carried out by the

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'gang of Najee Saleh' who had made a similar attempt to discredit AlHadrami's younger brother two months before. The Assistant Resident decided that no action was required in this case and commented that as Al-Hadrami had made a little fortune acting as an agent for Arab seamen, 'from time to time he excites the jealousy of his competitors'. V Seamen's agents at Aden were also implicated in trafficking in forged passports and in fraudulent applications for special certificates of nationality and identity. In December 1933 Said Ahmed Mirwas of 45 Loudoun Square, Docks, Cardiff, wrote to the First Assistant Resident, Aden, alleging that a number of Arab seamen there who were subjects of the Imam of Yemen possessed British Indian passports obtained by bribery through a seamen's agent at Aden, thought to be Al-Hadrami. He stated that these men had sent their photographs together with money to the agent in Aden who obtained the passports from a clerk named Ghazi in the Passport Office. He claimed that many hundreds of British Indian passports had been obtained by bribery through this clerk and the agent/' Interviewed by the Cardiff City Police early in 1934, Mirwas stated that the passport clerk and other native clerks at Aden sold forged passports to Arabs from the Yemen for 500 rupees. He further alleged that British passports had been improperly obtained by Arabs through bribery of native clerks at the British Consulates at Port Said and Bombay. However, Mirwas was unable to give the police the name of any Arab in possession of one of these forged passports but declared that he would make discrete enquiries and inform the police when he had identified these persons. Sergeant Holdsworth commented that there were few Arabs at Cardiff holding passports or other documents purporting to show that they were British subjects, but that a few cases of Arabs in possession of British passports which had been improperly obtained at Aden had come to the notice of the police in the past.41 The Home Office instructed the Cardiff police to take no further action in this case.42 It is interesting to note that Al-Hadrami was named in connection with a passport forgery case at Aden in 1928.43 It is unclear from the letter exactly what Mirwas hoped to achieve by raising this matter, but the police noted that when they interviewed Mirwas he was accompanied by another Arab named Hassan Abdul Kader Mackawee. In 1932 Mackawee, who was then living in South Shields, and another Arab, AH Saleh Alewa of 2 Mill Dam, South Shields, had written to the High Commissioner for India in London alleging that certain Arabs in South Shields had obtained British Indian passports at Aden through

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bribery.44 The South Shields police interviewed all Arabs in the town who possessed passports and found that although most of them were able to give satisfactory answers to questions about their place of birth, a few could not.45 The Aden police reported that Alewa and Mackawee were born in Aden but stated that they could not give them a good character as both were known drunkards. In July 1934 Mackawee, now residing in Cardiff, gave the Cardiff police the names of two Arabs who possessed British Indian passports which he claimed had been obtained improperly. He alleged that both men were not British subjects but subjects of the Imam of Yemen. The police report does not indicate what action was taken.46 Four years later, Mackawee made a more serious allegation. Interviewed by Cardiff City Police detectives in April 1938 he claimed that several Arab seamen in Britain possessed certificates of nationality and identity to which they were not entitled. Constable Creese reported: He (Mackawee) stated that many Arabs who intended applying for a certificate would forward a photograph and a sum of money to someone known by them at Aden, a few months before they make their application. The person to whom the photograph was sent would then approach one or two elderly residents at Aden, show them the photograph, and then, when they were interviewed by the authorities at Aden regarding the applicant's birth at Aden they would state the applicant was born at Aden. Mackawee further stated that he has recently returned from Aden, and before he could obtain a visa on his Certificate of Nationality and Identity, he was obliged to find a security for 3,000 rupees. While at Aden he had been informed that a passport clerk at Aden named Abdul Gafoor was alleged to be receiving 50 rupees for every passport or Certificate of Nationality and Identity he issued. Applicants were alleged to be even visiting his house at night. Mackawee stated that Gafoor is under an English officer named Sinclair, who is not aware of Gafoor's activities. He also informed me that a Police Inspector (a half-caste) named Reinny or Reinning, at Aden Camp was also receiving 50 rupees for the Certificates of Nationality and Identity.47 The matter was referred to the Governor of Aden, Sir Bernard Reilly, who reported in August 1938 that he had made enquiries into the allegations made by Mackawee. He was informed that Mackawee was a seaman who had recently endeavoured to establish himself as a seaman's agent at Aden but it was reported that he had rapidly lost his clients and his business through misappropriating their money. Shortly before his departure from Aden it was reported that he had threatened certain seamen who refused to deal with him, promising that he would make

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trouble for them when he arrived in Britain and would have them deported. In view of Mackawee's reputation, the Governor stated that he was not prepared to accept his personal allegations against Inspector Rainey, who was a police officer with a long record of efficient service, without the strongest evidence. He emphasized that every effort was made to ensure that the passport clerk did not accept or demand bribes for obtaining a certificate of nationality and identity and, so far, no complaints had been received from anyone in Aden. He did not consider that action against the passport officer was justified on the unsupported statements of Mackawee from abroad.48 On this occasion, it is possible that by making allegations against certain Arab seamen in Cardiff Mackawee intended to punish them for refusing to deal with him when he was trying to establish his business as a seamen's agent in Aden. In an earlier letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies dated 14 April 1937, Sir Bernard Reilly admitted that trafficking in falsely obtained certificates of nationality and identity did take place in Aden through various seamen's agents: There is, unfortunately, little doubt that such traffic prevails at present in Aden through various 'Seamen's Agents'. With regard to the charges levied by these agents in respect of true claims to British nationality no objection can be taken; they are merely employed by the applicants in the same capacity as a lawyer or solicitor, and are entitled to charge fees for services rendered. There is no doubt, however, that these agents also handle spurious claims, and that false witnesses or references can be obtained for a small remuneration to testify to the applicants' claims to British nationality. The usual procedure is for the applicant to send his photograph to Aden in advance (with a sum of money) to enable the witnesses to recognise him when subsequently shown the photograph which accompanies the application. Fraudulent applicants also trade on the fact that complete records of births and deaths have not been maintained in Aden in the past, and also that the records of Sheikh Othman [a district of Aden] were destroyed during the Great War. To guard against these frauds local Police officers were instructed to search for independent evidence, such as friends or relatives of applicants, and to ascertain whether they are known by name or repute to any other members of the public. In the absence of such independent evidence, the testimony of the named references is considered to be unreliable unless they are persons of known standing and integrity.49

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Following the introduction of the rota system in 1930, it had become almost impossible for Arabs who had landed irregularly and possessed neither a police registration, a passport nor a certificate of nationality and identity to obtain work, even in the Home and Coasting Trades. We know that certain Arab boarding house masters tried to regularize the status of boarders who had landed irregularly by making strenuous efforts to obtain certificates of nationality and identity for them.50Applications were made to the Office of the High Commissioner for India in London but another method must have been to employ the services of a seamen's agent at Aden. Indeed, boarding house masters and agents may have co-operated in securing these documents for their customers. VI Although the evidence is fragmentary, there seems little doubt that the seamen's agents at Aden provided a series of highly organized networks which assisted Arab seamen and the many new recruits to seafaring to evade the new regulations and restrictions imposed on their entry to Britain in the years following the First World War. This helps to explain why, despite deaths, return migration, repatriation and deportation, the number of Arab seamen in Britain certainly seems to have been maintained throughout much of the inter-war period. Most Arab recruits to seafaring were illiterate, knew no English or French and had few resources. Kinsmen and family may have helped some Arabs to migrate but it seems probable that the majority had no alternative but to seek help from one of the seamen's agents in Aden. The agents' role in the migration process probably increased in importance as restrictions on entry into Britain became more stringent. It may be assumed that their commission fees increased accordingly. Some, if not all, of the seamen's agents at Aden and their local agents at ports such as Djibouti and Marseilles must have been involved in a range of corrupt and illegal activities. They needed to maintain a network of contacts and it was their job to know whose palms to grease and with how much. They may well have paid bribes to certain ranks of the police and were certainly involved in trafficking in forged passports and in fraudulent applications for certificates of nationality and identity. Yet they could be useful to the police because of their unrivalled information about the whereabouts of Arab seamen. If the authorities at Aden wanted to locate a particular seaman, the police invariably went to one of the seamen's agents for help. For example, in June 1933 when Henrietta Stibbins Mayal of South Shields asked the Home Office to find out whether her husband, Abdul Mayal Audi, was dead so that she could claim a widow's pension, the

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police at Aden contacted Thabet Saleh Thoalla, one of the prominent seamen's agents there. He quickly discovered that Mayal, who had been deported from Britain in 1932, was alive and living in his tribal home-land near Qataba in the Imamate and produced two ex-seamen, also of the Audi tribe, who confirmed that they had seen Mayal in his native village two weeks before.51 One suspects that the relations between the seamen's agents and the police were complex and that secret deals were not uncommon. The police may well have exploited rivalries between the different agents. The wakil mughtaribin or emigrant agent remains a key figure in contemporary migration for employment from the Yemen.52 Then, as now, the central role of the agent in the migration process no doubt lent itself to abuse and he was probably viewed with a mixture of distrust, suspicion and envy by his seafaring clientele. The agent was a necessary evil.

NOTES Transcripts of Crown-copyright records in the Oriental and India Office Collections and Public Record Office appear by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Abbreviations: IOR (India Office Records); PRO (Public Record Office) 1. For a detailed study of the origins of the recruitment of Arab seafarers at Aden, and the system of hiring that evolved see Richard Lawless, 'Recruitment and Regulation: Migration for Employment of "Adenese" Seamen in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries', New Arabian Studies 11 (1994), pp.75-102. 2. Correspondence between the Shipping Master, Aden and the Political Resident in 1875 indicates that the system of hiring Arab (and Somali) firemen for the Messageries Maritimes steamers calling at the port had already existed 'for many years1 and that the arrangement was already in force when Captain Playfair was First Assistant Resident, that is, between 1855 and 1859 (IOR R/20/A/444 Marine Compilation 1875: Shipping Master to Political Resident, Aden complaining that Arabs and Somalis are being engaged for Messageries Maritimes steamers by unauthorized agents). By 1869 there is firm evidence that Arab seamen were being engaged at Aden by captains of steamers of the Service Maritimes des Messageries Impériales. (See correspondence in IOR R/20/ A/497 Marine and General Compilation 1869. Letter from the Agent, Service Maritime des Messageries Impériales, Aden to First Assistant Resident dated 26 March 1869; Letter from the Agent, Service Maritimes des Messageries Impériales, Aden to First Assistant Resident dated 20 October 1869.) On the history of Messageries Maritimes see Sarah Searight, Steaming East: the forging of steamship and rail links between Europe and Asia (London, 1991 ). 3. IOR R/20/A/444 Marine Compilation 1875 ; Letter from the Marine Department, Aden to the Consuls of France, Italy, Austro-Hungary, Royal Dutch and Imperial German dated 9 Aug. 1875. 4. The first reference to British shipping companies engaging Arab seamen at Aden is not until 1885. IOR R/20/A/810 p.337. Letter from representatives of key shipping companies and agents, including P & O, to Major Ferris, First Assistant Political Resident dated 9 June 1885.

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5. In March 1917 H.M. Superintending Aliens Officer, Cardiff, reported: 'Since these days the Arab colony in Cardiff (which I believe is the largest centre in UK for these men) has increased almost a hundredfold, owing chiefly I think to the high rate of wages now obtainable by seamen and firemen/ (PRO HO 45/11897 332087/8 H.M. Superintending Aliens Officer, Cardiff to H.M. Inspector, London, 31 March 1917). Few statistics are available on the number of Arab seamen at British ports during the First World War. Neil Evans points out that in 1916 the Arabs at Cardiff were estimated to be 1,000, a threefold increase over their pre-war numbers (Neil Evans, T h e South Wales Race Riots of 1919', Llafur, Vol.3, No.l (Spring 1980), p.8). Dr Abdul Majid, President of the Islamic Society, claimed that thousands of Arabs came from Aden to work on British ships during the First World War and that no fewer than 7(H) Arabs sailing from the Tyne ports lost their lives through enemy action. (Interview with Dr Majid published in The Shields Gazette, 11 March 1919, p.2). 6. IOR R/20/A/2134 Employment of Seamen at Aden 1910-1918, p.579. Letter dated 1 March 1918 from DADIWT Aden to Pudumjee Jeewanji, licence holder for supplying seamen to H.M. ships. . 7. IOR R/20/A/2852 Coolies and Labourers. Memorandum to the Resident from the First Assistant Resident dated 1920. 8. See, for example, J. Leigh Douglas, The Free Yemeni Movement 1935-1962 (The American University of Beirut, Beirut, 1987), p.40. 9. Information on the tribal origins of Arab seamen was collected from reports in a wide range of files in the Oriental and India Office Collections and Public Record Office. Petitions from seamen to the British authorities at Aden often give the tribal names of the petitioners. Reports on the deportation or repatriation of seamen from Britain also give tribal names. Particularly useful were IOR R/20/A/2133 Employment of Seamen at Aden 1906-1908; IOR R/20/A/2134 Employment of Seamen at Aden 1910-1918; and IOR R/20/A/2135 Employment of Seamen at Aden 1925-1933. 10. The Amiri and Haushabi were among the 'nine tribes' in the hinterland of Aden which came under British protection during the second half of the nineteenth century. Each 'tribe' contained several sub-tribes. The others denote groups of villages in Yemen making up a mikhlaf or administrative unit headed by a tribal sheikh. 11. In September 1923 the Chief Constable of Cardiff reported: i t is the practice of Arab seamen serving on British ships to remit the greater proportion of their wages to Aden and after sailing for two or three years from British ports they return to Aden where the money they have remitted awaits them and upon that support themselves there for a considerable time. The fact that they can obtain such employment and subsequent leisure stimulates other Arabs to copy their example.' (PRO HO 45/11897 332087/78 Letter from the Chief Constable, Cardiff to The Under Secretary of State, Home Office, dated 24 Sept. 1923). A memorandum on Arab seamen by the Acting British Vice-Consul in Marseilles, dated 11 December 1928, emphasizes the temporary nature of their emigration: i t appears to be a recognised fact that such seamen leave with the fixed intention of accumulating a sum of, say three or four hundred pounds, and returning therewith to their homes.' (PRO HO 45/13392 493912/97 Memorandum on Coloured Seamen by the Acting British Vice-Consul, Marseilles, 11 Dec. 1928). In March 1938 the Governor of Aden wrote: 'Southern Arabia is a poor country with comparatively little cultivable ground. Its people are poor, and when rainfall fails, they are faced with great hardships and many of them with the fear of starvation. These economic conditions have for centuries forced them to seek relief in emigration, or by finding temporary employment in more prosperous lands or on the sea.' (PRO CO 725/54/9 Letter from the Governor, Aden to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, London dated 16 March 1938). 12. The late Mr Michael Muckble very kindly allowed me to consult letters belonging to his father, Mohammed Muckble, one of the first Arab seamen to settle in South Shields and open an Arab boarding house for seamen there. 13. A number of seamen kept returning for new periods of employment on British ships after spending some time back in their home villages. For example, Ali Hassan Mori,

SEAMEN'S AGENTS AND THE MIGRATION OF ARAB SEAFARERS

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

23.

24.

25.

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who asked to be repatriated in 1932 because of the lack of employment opportunities at South Shields, stated that he had been coming and going from Yemen to Britain for 30 years. He is one of the earliest seamen recorded at South Shields (IOR R/20/A/4341 Deportation of Arabs and others from United Kingdom). The role of the broker or 'ghat serang' in the recruitment of Arab seamen at Aden is discussed in more detail in Lawless, op. cit. IOR R/20/A/2134 Employment of Seamen at Aden 1910-1918, p.775. Petition dated 8 May 1919 to First Assistant Resident via Shipping Master. IOR R/20/A/2852 Coolies and Labourers. Note by K.S. Dadina, Superintendent of Police, Aden dated 8 June 1920. IOR R/20/4 3265 Re: certain passengers who left Aden for Marseilles without passports. Report from Police Inspector, Crater to Assistant Resident, Aden dated 17 July 1928. IOR R/20/A/2852 Coolies and Labourers. File 255/1 Permission granted to Mahomed Nassir and Awad Ahmad al-Hadrami to send 36 coolies to Diego Suarez in Madagascar dated 5 Nov. 1920. For example, Abdul Rahman Shadli, who bought Hassan Mohamed's boarding house at 132 Commercial Road, South Shields, in 1932, later became a seamen's agent in Aden, though his business does not appear to have prospered (PRO CO 725/54/7 Copy of a report No.3337 dated 18 Aug. 1938 from the Police Inspector, Crater and Report from Chief Constable's Office, South Shields on Salyman Hassan, dated 8 Oct. 1938). In 1927 Mohamed Ahmed Ad-Dalali, alias Najee Salen Al-Tolaa, a boarding house keeper of 243 Bute Street, Cardiff, who had been the local agent there of Awad Ahmed Al-Hadrami, a seamen's agent at Aden, set up a rival agency in Aden and tried to put his former employer out of business (IOR R/20/A/3265 Re: certain Arab passengers who left Aden for Marseilles without passports; file no.557 of 1928). IOR R/20/A/2472 Impounding of registration certificates of seamen on arrival in Aden. IOR R/20/A/1784 Deportation of foreigners from USA, 1931. IOR R/20/A/1768 Deportation and removal orders. The Shipping Master, Aden commented in 1922 that there was very little demand for Adenese seamen at the port. In 1926 the Shipping Master argued that only one licenced broker for the recruitment of seamen was required at the port because of the small volume of work ; he did not anticipate that this would increase in the near future (IOR R/20/A/2135, p. 101). IOR R/20/A/2852 Coolies and Labourers. Memorandum to the Resident from the First Assistant Resident dated 1920. In 1935 new restrictions were imposed on Arab seamen at Aden. The Home Office issued instructions that in view of the persistence of acute depression in the shipping industry resulting in high rates of unemployment among white and coloured seamen in Britain, Adenese seamen should not be issued with Certificates of Nationality and Identity at Aden which would enable them to proceed to Britain to look for work unless they had a record of residence in the United Kingdom and of service in British ships 'closely antecedent to the date of their applications for such certificates'. These restrictions were to apply to British subejcts and British protected persons (PRO CO 725/31/3 Letter from the Resident, Aden to the Secretary of State for the Colonies dated 16 April 1935). PRO HO 45/11897 Letter from G.E. Baker, Board of Trade to W. Haldane Porter, H.M. Chief Inspector, Aliens Branch, Home Office dated 4 Dec. 1920. In discussions about the problems associated with the implementation of the Aliens Order of 1920, the Arabs were identified as the main problem. See PRO HO 45/11897 332087/23 Report on Coloured Seamen by E.N. Cooper, Immigration Office, Liverpool dated 17 Feb. 1921. During the critical years of the First World War, although the majority of Arab seamen were nominally Turkish subjects and therefore enemy aliens, their claims to British nationality were supported and upheld by the British authorities. PRO HO 45/11897 332087/12 Letter from Major-General J.M. Stewart, Political Resident, Aden to British Consul-General, Marseilles, 28 March 1917 and PRO HO 45/11897 332087/9 Letter from Assistant Secretary, Marine Department, Board of Trade to Under

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Secretary of State, Home Office, 19 April 1917. 26. PRO HO 45/11897 Letter from the Under Secretary of State, Home Office on the 'Registration of Coloured Alien Seamen (other than Chinese and Japanese)' addressed to Chief Constables and dated 23 March 1925. The first paragraph states . . . 'He [the Secretary of State] has come to the conclusion that in order to deal with the problem presented by these aliens - particularly those of them who are Arabs - it is necessary that they should be required to register in all cases.' 27. Even after the introduction of the rota system of registration in August 1930, Immigration Officers reported that judging from the numerous reports relating to the refusal of leave to land to Arabs, there appeared to be no decline in the attempts by this category of seamen from abroad to gain admission to Britain (PRO HO 45/14299 Part 2 562898/ 51 Extract from the Proceedings of a Conference of Immigration Inspectors held at the Home Office on 14 Oct. 1930). 28. In a highly segregated market, the Arab boarding house masters at British ports also needed to replenish their stocks of customers to remain in business. The Arab boarding house masters in South Shields were accused of being actively engaged in inducing Arabs to come from Aden to Britain for employment and not overscrupulous in their methods of assistance. (PRO HO 45/11897 Copy of Extract of Report from the Mercantile Marine Office, Blyth, dated 5 November 1920; PRO HO 45/11897 Asst. Suptg. Immigration Officer, Immigration Office, Newcastle-on-Tyne to H.M. Chief Inspector, Home Office, London, 23 Jan. 1920.) The smuggling in of Arab stowaways, it was argued, was a highly organised business in which boarding house and cafe keepers cooperated. (PRO HO 45/13392 493912/42 Note of a Conference held at the Home Office at 26 January, 1928, p.2.) One report suggests that boarding house masters at South Shields may have paid the fares of men who landed irregularly as a 'speculation' with the intention of keeping them as boarders until they could find employment (PRO HO 45/11897 Memo sgd C. Baines, India Office dated 23 Feb. 1920). It seems probable that some boarding house masters cooperated with the seamen's agents at Aden and formed part of their network to smuggle Arabs into Britain. 29. As early as 1917 the Political Resident, Aden observed that the majority of Arabs engaging as seamen usually went to Djibouti in French Somaliland where they signed on as firemen in French steamers. PRO HO 45/11897 332087/12 Letter from MajorGeneral J.M. Stewart, Political Resident, Aden to British Consul-General, Marseilles, 28 March 1917. 30. IORR/20/A/2852 Memo dated 26 Nov. 1919. 31. IOR R/20/A/2852 Coolies and Labourers. Memorandum by K.S. Dadina, Superintendent of Police dated 8 June 1920. The restrictions on seamen travelling to Djibouti may not have been maintained, because in 1928 seamen without passports appear to have been travelling freely to Djibouti. It is possible that the authorities at Aden found these restrictions too difficult to enforce. In 1930 Sir Stewart Symes, the Resident, Aden, explained some of the difficulties experienced at Aden in regulating the movements of Arab seamen: 'The port of Aden was the natural place to which Arabs drifted from the Protectorate and from all parts of South-west Arabia, and egress from it, especially by dhow, was hard to control. Further it was comparatively easy, by means of bribery, for Arabs not of Protectorate origin to get Chiefs in the Protectorate to declare them to be their subjects. Ships' captains, too, would engage Arabs as seamen, with or without documents. In face of all these adverse circumstances Sir Stewart emphasized the fact that effective control at Aden could only be relative.' (PRO HO 45/14299 Pt 2 Minutes of a Conference held at the Colonial Office on the 4th of September, 1930, to consider the question of the maintenance and repatriation and so on of Adenese seamen.) It is interesting to note that in 1928 the Acting British Vice-Consul at Marseilles argued that the British authorities at Aden tacitly approved of the temporary emigration of their subjects to seek employment as seamen. (PRO HO 45/13392 493912/97 Memorandum entitled 'Coloured seamen - question of issue of identity papers to by British Consular Officers' by the Acting British Vice-Consul at Marseilles to the Foreign Office, London dated 11 December 1928.)

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32. In 1926 Sergeant Broben of the Cardiff City Police reported: 'It has been proved by prosecutions that have taken place in this city that there has been considerable traffic amongst this class of men in loose discharge certificates and discharge books. The general practice is for an Arab who is in possession of a number of loose certificates of discharge showing his service on British ships to hand some of them to any younger member of his tribe who arrives in this country in order to facilitate his obtaining employment as a marine fireman. In some cases it has been known that they have secured these certificates abroad and then proceed to the United Kingdom armed with these Certificates as proof of their sea service.' (PRO HO 45/12314 476761/99 Report on Registration of Arabs irregularly landed by Sergeant Gerald Broben, Detectives Department, Cardiff City Police, dated 20 May 1926.) In 1928 the Chief Constable of South Shields cited the example of a case where a large number of discharges belonging to Arab seamen who had died were found in the possession of a boarding house master. (PRO HO 45/13392 493912/42 Note of Conference held at the Home Office on 26 Jan. 1928, p.2.) 33. In December 1928 the Acting British Vice-Consul, Marseilles reported: 'It will be readily admitted, I think, that Marseilles is a favoured disembarkation port for Arab seamen. The French steamship lines cater for what are known as deck passengers, and as Djibouti, a regular port of call for Marseilles-bound vessels, is easily accessible to both Adenese and Somalis, the Djibouti-Marseilles route is the one chiefly used by them. I am unaware as to what restrictions exist at other French ports regarding the entry of these men, but at Marseilles no difficulties whatever appear to be placed in their way. This question has, I might mention, formed the subject of correspondence between this Consulate General and the local Immigration Authorities, but nothing has been done by the latter to check the flow of immigrants.' PRO HO 45/13392 493912/97 Memorandum entitled 'Coloured seamen - question of issue of identity papers to by British Consular Officers' by the Acting British Vice-Consul at Marseilles to the Foreign Office, London, dated 11 Dec. 1928. The French evidently introduced restrictions of their own in 1929, perhaps as a result of representations by the British Foreign Office, but they do not appear to have been enforced until January 1936. PRO CO 725/54/9 Letter from Sir Bernard Reilly, Governor, Aden to W.G.A. Ormsby-Gore, Secretary of State for the Colonies dated 16March 1938. 34. Information about the route taken by Arab seamen can be found in PRO HO 45/11897 332087/22 Copy of Extract of Report from the Mercantile Marine Office, Blyth, dated 5 Nov. 1920; PRO HO 45/11897 332087/17 Letter from Asst. Suptg. Immigration Officer, Newcastle-on-Tyne to H.M. Chief Inspector, Home Office, London dated 23 Jan. 1920; PRO HO 45/11879 Memorandum entitled 'Registration of Coloured Seamen' by W. Haldane Porter, Aliens Branch, Home Office dated 3 Nov. 1924; HO 45/12314 476761/92 Report on 'Registration of Coloured Alien Seamen' by Sergeant Gerald Broben, Detectives Department, Cardiff City Police, dated 23 March 1926; Letter from the British Consul, Havre to His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Office, London, dated 2 May 1930. 35. PRO HO 45/11897 332087/22 Copy of Extract of Report from the Mercantile Marine Office, Blyth, dated 5 Nov. 1920. 36. PRO HO 45/11897 Memorandum entitled 'Registration of Coloured Seamen' by W. Haldane Porter, Aliens Branch, Home Office, dated 3 Nov. 1924. 37. PRO HO 45/13392 Memorandum initialled CR and dated 1.9.29. 38. PRO CO 725/21/8 Destitute Coloured Seamen. Report from the Chief Superintendent, Mercantile Marine Office, North Shields to Assistant Secretary, Mercantile Marine Department, Board of Trade dated 29 July 1930. For a more detailed discussion of the numbers of Arab seamen in Britain during the inter-war years see Lawless, op. cit. 39. The documents relating to this case are found in IOR R/20/A/3265 Re: certain Arab passengers who left Aden for Marseilles without passports. File No. 557 of 1928, 29 pages. 40. IOR R/20/A/2473 Passports impounding of registration certificates of seamen 1936. Letter from Said Ahmed Mirwas, to First Assistant Resident, Aden dated 11 Dec. 1933.

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4L IOR R/20/A/2473 Report by Sergeant T. Holdsworth of Cardiff City Police dated 1 March 1934. 42. IOR R/20/A/2473 Letter from E.N. Cooper, Home Office, London to Chief Constable, City Police, Cardiff dated 27 March 1934. 43. IOR R/20/A/3265 Re: certain Arab passengers who left Aden for Marseilles without passports. File No. 557 of 1928, p.9. See note by Assistant Resident dated 12 July 1928. 44. IOR R/20/A/2473 Letter from H.A.K. Mackawee, 3 Ferry Street, South Shields, to The Under-Secretary of the High Commissioner for India, India House, London dated 10 Oct. 1932; Letter from Ali Saleh Alewa, No. 2 Mill Dam, South Shields, to The High Commissioner, India House, undated. 45. IOR R/20/A/2473 Report by Inspector Thomas Humphrey, South Shields County Borough Police dated 11 Aug. 1932. 46. IOR R/20/A/2473 Two reports by Sergeant T. Holdsworth, Cardiff City Police dated 14 July 1934. 47. PRO CO 725/54/9 Report on Hassan Abdul Kader Mackawee by Constable Creese, Detectives Department, Cardiff City Police dated 19 April 1938. 48. PRO CO 725/54/9 Letter from Sir Bernard Reilly, Governor, Aden to H.R. Cowell, Colonial Office, London, dated 3 Aug. 1938. 49. PRO CO 725/43/1 Letter from Sir Bernard Reilly, Governor, Aden to The Secretary of State for the Colonies, London dated 14 April 1937. 50. For example, Ali Hamed Dheli who kept a boarding house at 95 and 103 West Holborn, South Shields, obtained Certificates of Nationality and Identity for several Arabs boarding with him and was well known at the Office of the High Commissioner for India in London. (PRO HO 45/13392 Letter from H.M. Immigration Officer, Mill Dam, South Shields, to H.M. Inspector, Newcastle dated 11 Jan. 1928.) In 1929 Mr Adams of the High Commissioner's Office \ . . referred in particular to the insistent requests of certain boarding-house keepers in South Shields for the issue of these certificates to Adenese boarding with them'. (PRO CO 725/19/6 Notes of a Conference held at the Colonial Office on 3 May 1929, p.2.) A report by the Cardiff City Police in 1938 on Mohamed Abdo alias Mohamed Abdul Malek, who had been deported in 1935 but had returned to Cardiff, states that Abdo had originally arrived in the United Kingdom as a stowaway in 1928 and along with several other Arabs was taken to London by a boarding house keeper from South Shields and issued with a Certificate of Nationality and Identity. Abdo was a Dhubhani and therefore a subject of the Imam of Yemen. (PRO CO 725/54/9 Cardiff City Police Report on Mohamed Abdo dated 8 Sept. 1938.) 51. IOR R/20/A/4341 Deportation of Arabs and others from United Kingdom. 52. On the role of wakil mughtaribin today see Jon C. Swanson, Emigration and Economic Development: The Case of the Yemen Arab Republic Boulder, CO, 1979), pp. 56-9. In the 1970s Yemeni seamen in Britain continued to send money to their families in Yemen through agents. Relatives of some seamen stated that they had no idea how much money was actually sent to them but drew money from the agent when required.

Across the Universe: Racial Violence and the Post-War Crisis in Imperial Britain, 1919-25 NEIL EVANS The race riots which occurred in the British ports in 1919 can be understood in a broader context - the multiple conflicts which struck the British Empire in the aftermath of the First World War. These greatly influenced the way in which the outbreaks were perceived and dealt with. The repercussions of the riots were felt in the colonies, especially in the West Indies. The major means used to regulate the entry of black people to inter-war Britain, the Aliens' Order of 1925, a distant response to 1919 fitted into a wellestablished pattern of colonial legislation, which was racist in intent rather than in the letter.

Understanding the race riots which disturbed the British ports in 1919 requires a wider context and explanatory framework. David Brion Davis pointed this out some years ago when he observed that no one had tried to explain why riots had broken out on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time.1 This is a wider issue. The history of black people is particularly difficult to force into the confines of a single city or even a single state. In the course of the nineteenth century they gradually escaped the shackles of slavery for the less tangible ones of wage labour and urbanization. 2 In the wake of the disturbances of 1919 the mouthpiece of the Independent Labour Party observed that: T h e blacks who have been subjected to this treatment are the victims of our imperialist policy and capitalist system.' 3 It is necessary to go beyond political rhetoric and show that imperial politics shaped the situation in 1919, while the emergence of waged In Memory: Jane Morgan, 1949-92 I benefited from giving this paper in Manchester, Milan and Aberystwyth, as well as at Liverpool. My friends Ed. Countryman and Marika Sherwood helped me a good deal with encouragement, comments, references and a little dissent. Another friend, Merfyn Jones, gave me leads on Liverpool and many people at the various seminars I spoke to, particularly at the Vlth Biennial Conference in Early American History at Milan, made helpful comments or provided encouragement; Robin Blackburn, David Brion Davis, Eric Foner, Neville Kirk, Peter Linebaugh, Leon Litwack, and June Namias. I often talked about riots, especially those of 1919, with my friend Jane Morgan. As I finished the first draft of this paper she fell mortally ill. I would like to dedicate it to her memory, and to Ken in his loss.

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labour was changing systems of race relations all over the western world. The starting point is the imperial context. The British Empire was simultaneously huge, powerful and vulnerable. Its rulers thought that it could only avert disaster by the making of timely concessions to its many enemies. Major-General G.J. Wolseley complained in 1874 that it was not possible to raise the army required for extensive protection of the empire: The nature of our Empire, made up of possessions all over the world, entails upon our army duties unknown to the same extent by all other nations, but. . . the insular position of the Mother Country, and our superiority at sea - good protecting elements against invasion - are good reasons why it is not necessary to keep on foot an immense armed force. As a nation, we are led to content ourselves with a military force at home just barely large enough - . . . [and] To supply the small contingent of troops required for wars with the savage nations that our commerce and the scattered nature of our empire occasionally brings us into collision with.4 The expansion of the empire and trade in the late nineteenth century made possible by a wide range of technical improvement - did little to change the overall picture, though technology did make the suppression of native peoples easier. They did not (as Hilaire Belloc put it) have the Maxim gun.5 Yet force was never sufficient to hold down the empire. 6 This context made British imperialism so interested in new weapons including cultural ones. It fought its colonial wars by the ruthless exploitation of native labour in Africa, something that contributed more than its mite to the undermining of African community structures. In 1918 Britain had the largest air force in the world - 22,000 aircraft - and this fact probably owed something to the spate of writing (some of it science fiction) from the 1880s onwards which asserted that air power could be an effective means of policing a far-flung and thinly soldieried imperial edifice. Sadly in the 1920s and 1930s science fiction became all too factual for lesser races' who found themselves on the receiving end of this firepower, though it was tempered by inter-service rivalry. The army found bombing ineffective and of dubious morality, arguing that its punitive columns were more selective in their victims. As early as 1919 a provincial newspaper was celebrating the humiliation of Afghan rebels by British aviators: 'the only way to escape the terrors of the airplane is by unconditional surrender'. Culturally the cricket bat was also made to serve its serious purpose of displaying innate British superiority, something which was seen seriously as a device of integration. The problems

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only came later when the colonials learned to play the game better than its inventor.7 The British Empire was only able to survive for so long because its enemies were rarely united against it, because it made timely concessions to them in a long-standing foreign policy of appeasement (which included the economic appeasement of free trade), and because the empire was developing at different speeds (demands for self-government from the dominions came before political mobilization occurred in the tropical colonies).8 The situation in 1919-20 is something of an exception to this rule ; the aftermath of war focused the problems of the British Empire and made them stand out in high relief. These issues were in the forefront of the minds of those who dealt with the issues raised by the riots of 1919 and had a deep influence on their thought. They could not escape the imperial context of their actions, not least because one of the most effective tactics of black resistance and political action was constantly to point out the imperial dimension of every issue. On the surface there was little for British imperialists to complain about in 1919. The First World War had eliminated its most powerful imperial competitor as a serious force and the other major powers were allies; along with France, Britain was the only significant allied beneficiary from the redistribution of colonies which inevitably followed on from the end of hostilities. The empire reached its greatest size in area and in numbers of people. A million square miles were added to its existing 13 million by the peace treaties and 450 million people now lived under British rule. This was more than a quarter of the population of the world. Eight and a half million men had been raised for its armed forces in the course of the war. Proponents of empire like Curzon and Milner had acquired key political roles under Lloyd George; the wind seemed to be set fair for them. As a result of the peace treaties Britain became a central player in the Middle East rather than a peripheral one. Curzon's dream of a continuous belt of influence from the Mediterranean to India was fulfilled, and the acquisition of Tanganyika from Germany realized Rhodes' ambitions of a string of colonies from the Cape to Cairo. 9 Yet victory had not come easily. Defeats in the war had dented imperial prestige, and they were not completely hammered out by the ultimate victory. 1917 had been a life or death struggle, and in order to win, promises had been made to various groups within the empire and beyond. Some of these were mutually incompatible; promises made to Arabs sat uneasily with those made to Jews. Britain ignored the issue of a specifically Palestinian nationalism (as opposed to a generalized Arab nationalism) and seeing the creation of a Jewish state in a much longer time perspective than did Zionists. Nationalism had been greatly strengthened as a result

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of the fighting and the collapse of the old empires of eastern and southern Europe. Some of the promises had been made in India and Egypt. It was here that the succession of challenges began. Egyptian nationalists saw themselves as the heirs of Mehemet Ali's independent state, and with Turkey disposed of they were no longer threatened by an enemy. They were not allowed to present their grievances at Versailles and A.P. Thornton considers this to have been: 'more potent in its ultimate effects than Amritsar on the Indians'. The articulation of their protests led to the arrest of their leaders and demonstrations, riots, sabotage and assassination. By May The Times thought that a 'general state of suppressed tension prevailed]' there, making constitutional reform an urgent necessity. By then the risings had been crushed but there was sporadic violence thereafter and Egypt would remain under martial law until 1921.10 In India the ferment was compounded by splits within the Congress which allowed militancy to have its head. There were regional, religious and tactical divisions within the movement. Industrial conflict was mixed in, as in the massive riots in Bombay in January. By April there were rebellions in the Punjab, and General Dyer fearing a repeat of the 'Mutiny' of 1857 acted accordingly at Amritsar, the 'Indian Peterloo'. It was explicitly compared at the time with the Morant Bay massacre of 1865 in Jamaica. The number of deaths (at least 379) was exceptional and showed the extent of the challenge that the British Raj thought it was facing. As Derek Sayer has recently shown, the action was in many ways a punitive action, more in tune with the nature of British imperialism than was officially admitted. Dyer felt he had 'to punish the naughty boy'. Challenges continued to mount. In May there was a war with Afghanistan, and a war with Turkey was feared. By June even Malta had erupted into riots in which there was loss of life. In July Iraq rebelled too. Ireland was constantly simmering and exploding; 1918-19 was chiefly a period of arming and full-scale guerrilla warfare (and the Black and Tans) would not come until 1920. Yet it was still the most severe Irish crisis that had ever been known and it helped intensify the situation by bringing it closer to home. The issues were critical: 'India made the Empire as Ireland made the United Kingdom; the integrity of both could not be tampered with except at the cost of destroying the whole structure." 1 Bernard Porter reads the overall lesson: Here at last was the concerted colonial uprising which imperialists had long been frightened of, and which only good fortune had prevented before. One conflagration could have been kept under control ; so many at the same time was rather stretching the resources of the imperial fire service . . .,2

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It was not just in Whitehall that there was this consciousness of it being a testing and deciding time for the Empire; the provincial press also considered the situation. When the riots of the summer of 1919 brought the empire closer to their doorsteps than most of these editors felt comfortable with, they could not claim that they were not prepared by an intense period of discussion. In Liverpool the press was full of imperial matters in May 1919. The Liverpool Daily Post commented on the possible appearance of Indian nationalists in Paris: The entrance of representatives of Indian nationalism would complete an extraordinary circle of British Imperial influence and responsibilities. While our greatest difficulty is quite near home, the unrest in Egypt and India are indicative of the magnitude and the variety of problems with which the British Empire is always faced in regard to backward races.13 The only hope for the future - other than a level of military repression it found intolerable - was the application of British principles of selfgovernment to the whole empire. This was even to be the case with regard to India, however unpalatable the leader writer evidently found this prospect. Throughout May the paper kept its readers aware of the state of things in India. Its contemporary, the Liverpool Courier, was even more concerned, seeing a threat to the empire from the twin pincers of Bolshevism and Islam: Bolshevism represents a typical Asiatic ideal of anarchy and rapine . . . The Young Turks are striving to embarrass the English in India and along the great rivers and stirring up their co-religionists, with the ultimate hope that Turkish misrule will be re-established in Europe and Asia Minor.14 The Times more plausibly linked the widespread Muslim unrest with the downfall of Turkey, 'the last great temporal Islamic Power'. Yet it seemed to have lost its earlier optimism about the possibility of a federation of Arab states with a Jewish Palestine which it had seen as being rooted in history: the Arab empire which had formed a bridge of civilization over the middle ages, between the Roman world and modern Europe. 15 Many felt that Britain would need the aid of the United States to sustain the new world order which seemed simultaneously to promise and threaten so much. In May an Anglo-American Society was established in Liverpool and John A. Stewart observed: 'Of all the nations America and Great Britain were the two that combined within themselves the greatest potentialities either for good or for evil. Upon their friendship and

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goodwill virtually depended the whole welfare of the human race and every effort to better human conditions." 6 As the empire exploded, it became increasingly difficult to contain the pressures from the working class at home. The labour unrest of the postwar period was clearly a world-wide issue and seen as such at the time. The more conspiratorial perceived the guiding hand of Bolshevism behind it, as much as they did behind imperial ferment. The labour revolt was rooted in long term trends as well as the more transient concerns of the post-war crisis. Working class communities were stabilising as the massive migration of the nineteenth century slowed and ceased. Income and status differentials which were so formative in the mid Victorian working class had been eroded. The mood of 1919-20 was aggressive and disposed towards social transformation. It was fed by resentment at uneven sacrifice in the war, and especially by hostility to wartime profiteering, but there was a deeper undercurrent, a cumulative process. The ferment of 1919-20 built on the foundations laid in the strike waves of 1889-92 and what Lloyd George called the 'tidal wave of impatience' of 1910-14. J.R. Clynes, a Labour politician who had formerly been a Cabinet Minister in the wartime coalition, clearly saw stages in the development of unrest, however much he deplored its outbreak. In the pre-war period of prosperity, he thought, workers had learned that it required force to win concessions from their employers. In the war they had acquired the necessary strength to apply the lesson, once the restraints of the wartime truce were finally lifted.17 The war had not only clarified class relations but had challenged many domestic structures and attitudes. Some would see the new situations as an opportunity, others as a threat. Memory was invoked most clearly with the idea of restoration, yet it existed no less firmly in the minds of those who wanted dramatic changes. Their memories were of past oppression, and this fortified their determination for change. Nowhere was this confrontation of differing memories starker than in the arena of race relations. White rioters could draw on the sense of solidarity in working class communities and seek to restore the pre-war pattern of segregation and discrimination. The solidarity of black people, by contrast, led to a sense of assertion rooted in knowledge of imperial subjugation, and more dimly of slavery. These contrasting memories had little in common, and consequently solidarity could not be created on an inter-racial basis. The result was a set of 'flag saluting, foreigner hating' attacks on black people which marred and marked the major ports in 1919. There were disturbances of some kind in some port or other for most of the first half of the year.18 The issues had started in South Shields while the war was still going on. In response to a Home Office circular asking for details of

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various groups of aliens, the Chief Constable arrested three Arab boarding house masters on the grounds that they had failed to register under the Aliens Act of 1914; they were picked out as influential examples in a much larger group of Arabs regularly sailing from the port. The men objected that they were British subjects and therefore the legislation did not apply to them. One had lived in the town for 23 years, and all felt the issue was insulting. They had regularly returned to Aden for holidays and had done so on passports issued by the Foreign Office. The Chief Constable claimed to be acting in response to local feeling that they were really Turks and therefore enemy aliens. Despite his disclaimer, it is hard to see anything other than personal or racial animus coming into operation here. At the very least (as the Home Office felt) he was being overzealous. On his own admission: 'he did not know the difference between a Turk and an Arab'. In the event the police lost the case and, as in most towns, Arabs with birth registration documents or discharge books showing that they were Adenese were accepted as British subjects. The boarding masters threatened that they would organize a strike if they were subjected to police harassment, and this seems to have had some impact on official opinion.19 The issue did not go away despite the efforts of the Home Office to pour oil on troubled waters. In January 1919 South Shields was the location of the first disturbances of a communal character; a mild precedent may have been an earlier incident in which a Somali threatened an official of the Seamen's Union for his failure to secure the return of the man's effects from Marseilles. Just over a week later there were attacks on Arab properties in Waterloo Vale, Barrington Street and Chapter Row. The Arabs defended themselves and took part in an ensuing mêlée on the streets. They were arrested along with some of their white assailants. These incidents took place around the huge market-place of the town which contained its old town hall. Almost three weeks later came the incidents in the town which have drawn most attention in studies of the events of 1919. These started at the Mill Dam, the former site of a corn mill, but since 1866 a public quay and the location of the Custom House and the Port Health Authority. It was the local equivalent of Liverpool's Pier Head; it was to the south of the market-place and closer to the main Arab settlement in East Holborn. Unlike the earlier events it was more directly linked to conflicts over employment. Arabs who had agreed at a boarding house to sign on a steamer went to the Mercantile Marine Office to do so. Here trade union officials complained that crews should be chosen from those people waiting for ships; private arrangements for signing on were outside the rules. All of this was probably correct and the Arabs accepted the signing

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on of a white crew in their place. What they did not accept was the racist abuse of an official of the Cooks' and Stewards' Union. He apparently said: Come out you black ********. You are not going to join the ship' and 'You black ********. This ship is not for you.' This led to violence within the offices, with the Arabs eventually being driven back to East Holborn. From here they mounted a counter-attack - now armed with revolvers, knives, sticks and bottles - and according to the Chief Constable occupied a house which commanded Holborn and the Mill Dam. They probably feared a recurrence of the attacks on their property of the previous month and thought that counter-attack was the best means of defence. It was at this point that the police began to intervene in force (some constables were present at the original fracas) and they were followed by a naval detachment, while the Durham Light Infantry was held in reserve. Newspapers started their accounts of the proceedings with the Arab counter-attack and could therefore happily depict the outbreak as an 'Arab riot'. Self-defence was seen as a peculiarly 'eastern custom': the civilized west went to the police station instead! In fact most of the firing was into the air, in order to warn off assailants, though sticks, stones and bottles were thrown. Some whites were charged (by the Arabs) and convicted, but the full force of official prosecution was felt by the Arabs, several of whom had heavy sentences for riot inflicted upon them at Durham Assizes. The events of February have to be considered in the context of the January disturbances if they are to be properly understood. We also need to add a street disturbance in which women came to blows over the relative merits of Arab and white husbands and another incident in which a West Indian and an Indian (both of whom were apparently drunk) were convicted of damaging an Arab boarding house in East Holborn. The conflict over husbands suggests that sexual relations was an issue here, and that the tensions may have arisen over the growing numbers of boarding houses owned by Arabs, many of whom had white wives. Later in the year cases of bastardy and desertion would be brought against Arabs in South Shields, while the local police arrested another Arab for taking an unmarried girl away from Cardiff without her father's permission. The press clearly did not report all that happened and explicitly refused to publish letters about the Arab community which were received after the main riot. This act of civic responsibility was not to be repeated elsewhere (particularly not in south Wales where press reporting was full and sensational) and may be regretted only by inquisitive historians loath to lose another piece of jigsaw.20 By the time of the main outbreak in South Shields there had been incidents in Glasgow, coming as a prelude to its general strike in support

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of 40 hours of January 1919. Again the troubles started at the Mercantile Marine Office over preference given to whites over signing on. They developed in the context of a long-running dispute between rival seamen's unions and an agitation against the Chinese. On the morning of the riot Emmanuel Shin well had made a hostile speech. The violence lasted for an hour and left three men (two white and one black) seriously injured. The local trouble was then absorbed into the concern for the strike which developed a week after the racial disturbances. Ethnic conflicts slowly began to come to a head. In April there were three days of rioting in the East End of London.21 The issues simmered away until they exploded in Liverpool and south Wales in June. The exact course of events in Liverpool is unclear. There seems to have been antagonism between white and black sailors for some time before June and personal vendettas were played out. Out of one of these there was a fight between Scandinavian and West Indian sailors in which the blacks resisted with knives and firearms. Some of the Liverpool police were injured, one shot through the neck. The police went to arrest the black men they held to be to blame in Upper Pitt Street. They were followed by an angry white crowd which pursued a 23-year-old West Indian, Charles Wootton, to the Queen's Dock. What happened next is unclear; at minimum he was recaptured by the police and then attacked by the crowd. He fell or was pushed into the dock; he swam for some time but at least one stone hit his head and he sank. His body was recovered later that night. In the next few days there were violent assaults on black property and persons in south Liverpool. Seven hundred blacks were taken into protective custody, and ultimately the white crowds (sometimes numbering thousands) were deterred by the use of mounted police to patrol the streets. Gradually the overt violence subsided, but it continued less visibly for some time.22 The events in Liverpool were paralleled by serious disturbances in Barry and Newport, and then eclipsed by the most serious outbreak at Cardiff. There were four days of violent assault on Newtown, a new black settlement in a predominantly Irish area of the city and on the more clearly defined ghetto area of Butetown. In all in south Wales, four men died, one in Barry and three in Cardiff. Three of them were white. In Cardiff the police chose to cordon off Butetown rather than use the device of protective custody; in doing so they probably accelerated the process of ghetto formation. The movement of blacks back into what had long been regarded as 'Nigger Town' was a clear objective here, with blacks found in the main streets being told forcibly to 'get back to your own part of the city'. Similar things may have been at stake in South Shields: the first outbreak was near the town centre while the second swayed symbolically

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between the main Arab settlement in East Holborn, and Coronation Street which contained the Seamen's Union's offices.23 What had caused these outbreaks? Some elements of restoration have been hinted at above. In many respects the underlying reasons were not dissimilar to the general features of the labour unrest in general. It was particular causes in the ports that directed the attacks towards the black population rather than towards employers or the government. Port labour was in many ways out of the mainstream of the development of the labour movement, and this may help to account for the different way in which the issues were articulated there.24 There were four fundamental reasons. First, economic issues were vital. The war had disrupted the international channels of Britain's trading economy and it was difficult to fit it into new grooves. Despite the post war boom there were frictions in many of the industries which influenced the ports affected by riots - an indication of the isolation of the maritime industries from the effects of a 'replacement boom' in the domestic market. The press caught the mood of inarticulate grievance in Liverpool well: Industrial problems appear to be getting more complex every day. This week several large employers of labour connected with ships and shipping have dispensed with the services of a number of workmen, and the market for young skilled artisans threatens to become flooded. The high rate of wages is put forward as the excuse for 'sacking' many estimable hands and at present there is considerable unrest on Mersey side.25 Issues may have been compounded here by Cunard's announcement that it was shifting its Atlantic vessels to Southampton, which came just over a month before the outbreak of the riots. As a newspaper editorial put it it raised questions about T h e Future of Liverpool'.26 In Glasgow and South Shields engineering strikes disrupted production in the early part of the year. This was especially important on the Tyne. Ship-repairing was a key industry and the ships diverted from yards in South Shields also failed to pick up cargoes there. There was a knock-on effect into shipping, and the coal export trade. It was claimed that the Tyne yards lost 60 vessels to Rotterdam and other European ports and by the end of February the engineering strike ensured that: 'the buoys in the Tyne are heavily laden with tonnage awaiting repairs'. This exacerbated the position of an already congested port: at the beginning of the month ships were already being diverted to southern ports because of this problem. Some shipowners were alleged to be keeping their vessels in other ports (like Cardiff) because of the intensity of the Tyneside problem early in the year. Congested ports reduced the number of jobs for seamen and

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ensured the frantic competition for them which often contributed to the outbreak of riots. From the beginning of the year there were unemployed seamen throughout Britain and the Seamen's Union was directing its attention towards Chinese and black British seamen as a means of shortterm solution. By June, in Liverpool, it was claimed that: 'Congestion at the docks has reached an acute stage. "It could not be worse," declared a shipping authority of many years experience/ An overtime ban by the dockers in search of their charter was stirred in for good measure. In south Wales the production of coal was well down on pre-war levels, which had implications for seamen's jobs. Here there was also acute congestion, in an area where even in peacetime this had been a problem.27 Much of the burden fell upon demobilized service men and women. Against its instincts and with the threat of escalating soldiers' mutinies behind it the government had allowed the process of demobilization to accelerate beyond the jobs which were readily available for former servicemen. By June 1919 around 3,200,000 had been released from the army and navy and perhaps 400,000 of these had not been re-absorbed into the workforce. Overall unemployment rates were at a low level of 2.4 per cent, well below those of the pre-war period, but the war had the effect of making the sufferers less stoic than in the past. By June many ex-servicemen had exhausted the 26 week out-of-work donation and the government was obliged to extend it for a further 13 weeks, but at a reduced rate. 2s The Times observed philosophically: Has there ever been a country in which a hard war did not leave the ex-soldier with a grievance, and every decent civilian with a thorn in his conscience about the fighting man? The contrast between wartime when man-power for the armies is the one essential, and every resource of the State is mustered to provide it, and the days when fighting has ended and the men of the armies return to try to find new places in the machine of civil life-that contrast is proverbial.29 Ex-servicemen were in a less philosophical mood. They were well organized and agitated publicly about their plight. In May there were violent disturbances in London; in July they would burn down Luton Town Hall. By May the Liverpool ex-serviceman's organization was complaining to the Lord Mayor about the black presence. Ironically a few days before the riots broke out there it was claimed that the employment situation was improving, though some of this was the result of women workers ceasing to register as unemployed rather than a reduction in male unemployment which would have had more influence on ethnic conflict. In Cardiff exservicemen were unusually prominent in the columns of the press. 30

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Most of the black men were sailors who had been recruited to fill gaps in the merchant service in the course of the war (apart from the smaller numbers who were well established in merchant shipping before the war) though everywhere there were also demobilized soldiers from the West Indian Regiment. In Liverpool, in particular, some of the blacks worked in shore jobs in warehouses and factories. Yet the black jobs were largely a thing of the past by the time the peak of the rioting occurred. It has been shown above how this was the case in Glasgow and South Shields. In Cardiff the shipowners were giving preference in employment to white British sailors. In Liverpool very few of the blacks still had jobs at the outbreak of the violence, and a few days of rioting were sufficient to ensure that none retained them.31 Compounding a job shortage was a housing crisis which was becoming increasingly serious as the year advanced. Sometimes the blame was explicitly placed at black thresholds. This was most clearly articulated in Cardiff, but the same issues would seem to have been present at Liverpool. It is the superior reporting of the south Wales press that makes the difference.32 Secondly, there was sexual jealousy. Here official views found it easiest to sympathize with the rioters. In South Shields, Liverpool and Cardiff there was much middle-class feeling that established sexual morality had broken down in the course of the war. In Cardiff the nonconformist pressure group, the Citizens' Union, kept the issue alive throughout the war, and suffragists turned themselves into moral police for the duration. In Liverpool it was the National Union of Women Workers who assumed this role and kept sexual issues to the fore. The Watch Committee paid their patrols as a supplement to its own concerns; it seems that the chief constable thought it was a small price to pay to prevent these women from donning real police uniforms and to deflect their agitations away from issues of the moral state of the streets. He thought that considering the number of troops that had passed through Knotty Ash Camp in the course of the war, and the breakdown in parental authority caused by the men being away at the front that the 'problem' had not got worse. Professional prostitution had not got worse, it was the 'flapper' type, he said, that gave cause for concern.33 It could seem as if the whole structrure of family authority was under threat. After complaining about the riots in his annual report of 1919, the Chief Constable of South Shields turned his attention to general issues of discipline: The problem that has engaged my serious consideration is the contemplation of the great numbers of young people, who nightly wander aimlessly about the public thoroughfares. As regards the

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young men, it is appalling to think of the wasteful sacrifice of golden opportunity by this reckless waste of golden hours. The same applies to young girls and women, following the same course of life. Mothers guard your daughters, as upon them, and through them depends much of the future happiness of our nation . . . fortify them with the experience you have gained in life, that they may not fall a prey to temptation . . . Before the false step is taken intervene with your motherly love and persuasion, and leave no room for remorse.34 The local newspaper had already confronted another challenge to the family order. How long will it take to reform that relic of the war - the bad boy? Which way shall the authorities move? Now father is home from the front perhaps his martial influence may be brought to bear on the teasing vices of the juvenile who pays no attention to his mother's bared right arm. There is a screw loose somewhere in the upbringing of boys and girls." All this presented the perfect backdrop for the issue of sexual 'misalliance' which emerged openly into the Liverpool press immediately before the outbreak of the riots. T r o Patria' wrote to the Liverpool Echo: We are now settling the question of alien sojourn in this country, and while so doing are overlooking the great increase of coloured people in our cities and towns. The influx of negroes - in some cases accompanied by their women and children - has become distinctly noticeable and this type of immigrant is unwelcome in the extreme . . . by tending towards the deterioration of the white race with all its consequent implications. The negro may have all the virtues attributed to him by his champions but let him remain with those virtues in his own land. The number of English girls consorting with negroes and Chinese is a scandal. Now is the time to settle this scandal. Let us keep a pure race.36 This seems to have inspired the like-minded 'Ngosi' to pick up his pen: I walked into the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton and to my amazement saw two negroes dancing with white girls. The incident tends to show these coloured people have crept into all our social life, and if something drastic is not done very soon the colour question will assume a very different aspect. The South Africans,

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who are as broad-minded as we are, and have lived among the negroes for over thirty years, should be better judges as to the treatment of negroes than we are, and I would suggest that their method of dealing with the colour question should be tried here.-7 Inter-racial sexual relations have, therefore, to be seen as part of a wider series of anxieties about change in the social and moral order which emerged from the war. Race was a more shocking issue than the more general issues of discipline, and it may have seemed more amenable to control. Thirdly was the issue of resentment at an 'alien' population. From the turn of the century the legal boundaries around Britain and Britishness were being increasingly tightly drawn. The Aliens' Restriction Act of 1905 was aimed at curbing the movement of East European Jews into the East End of London, in particular. It forbade the entry of the indigent and the insane. Experience in the administration of this act was used as a foundation for the erection of the Aliens' Restriction Act of 1914, which required aliens to register with, and report regularly to, the police. Enemy aliens were interned.38 The legislation was strictly enforced. In south Wales even Belgians (refugees from German invasion) needed special permission to live in restricted areas which were militarily sensitive. At South Shields, the law was enforced stringently and heavy fines regularly imposed for relatively minor infractions of the act. The growing number of police visits to seamen's boarding houses during the war are also a reflection of this concern to regulate the behaviour of foreigners: POLICE VISITS TO SEAMEN'S BOARDING HOUSES, SOUTH SHIELDS Year

Visits

1915 1916 1917 1918 1919

740 1,882 2,263 1,498 2,061

Source: County Borough of South Shields, Reports on Police Establishment, 1915-19.

Perhaps a town of which there was a local saying: 'All together like the Folk of Shields' had a particular concern to limit and control outsiders.-w In 1915, in the wake of the sinking of the Lusitânia there were riots against German shops in many British cities, including Liverpool. In South Shields the Chief Constable warned a German that it would not be safe to open a business there; he did so and his windows were broken. Patriotism fed fully upon xenophobia, and Germans and their allies were the principal though not the only victims of the process. The Western Mail

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carried a leader headed T h e Insufferable Alien'; it took up the theme of German infiltration of spies into Britain, playing on pre-war memories of the German bands which visited the city. At the time, and subsequently, they were accused of spying.4" Ports are often celebrated for their cosmopolitanism, but contacts with the wider world could also induce hostility. In Liverpool Dr Macnamara, Financial Secretary of the Admiralty, told an audience at the Town Hall in May 1919: 'When Germany declared war upon the merchant ships of the world, and thus by one deliberate and dreadful decree divorced herself from the great brotherhood of world mariners, bound together by the noble spirit, the chivalry of the sea . . . . To complete the charge, Captain the Marquess of Graham observed that before the war there had been about 30,000 aliens on British ships: 'that sort of thing should now be ended'.41 It was the kind of theme that the Seamen's Union warmed to. It had always agitated against the employment of foreigners in the British mercantile marine, and after securing a reduction in their numbers before the First World War it turned its attention towards the Chinese. It was a long campaign, which sometimes exploded into violence, as with the destruction of all 30 Chinese laundries in Cardiff in the national seamen's strike of 1911.42 In 1913 the Seamen's Union joined with the National Transport Workers' Federation to agitate on the issue; large sums of money were spent and 'good' results claimed. T h e Chinese Invasion of Great Britain' was held to be 'A National Danger': If the employment of Asiatics can be justified on board British ships, competing with our people in their own country, then justification exists for thousands of Chinese to be imported into this country to compete with the miners, railwaymen, fishermen, and all other classes of shore workers. If the Chinaman is to supplant the Britisher in his natural avocation, how will it be possible to maintain our supremacy on the sea?43 The matter escalated during the war. The union feared that the war would become a massive opportunity for the Chinese and that this would force wages down at its end. In theory black British sailors should have been immune from this action. In the 1911 strike they had picketed alongside whites and their growing numbers during the war owed something to the union's hostility to the Chinese. Once port rates were agreed in 1911 any sailor signing at a British port should have been paid on the same scale, so the old issue of undercutting ought to have evaporated. This was extended to the national level in 1917 with the creation of the National Maritime Board which established a closed shop in the industry. It arose because of the problems of the supply of seamen and the prospect of

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enhanced demand once American-built ships arrived in Britain. Here the basis was laid for the union's long collaboration with the employers, though Havelock Wilson's opposition to national wage scales and his advice to seamen to be thrifty during hostilities to lay something aside for the peace suggest that the attitudes were older-established. Also in 1917 the Triple Alliance concluded an agreement with the employers that white labour should have preference over coloured during the war; 'coolies' should only be used when there were no other ways of filling needs. The problem was that xenophobia is the least precise of ideas; it is difficult to limit it tightly. Some of it rubbed off on to the black British sailors. Sometimes it was foreign seamen who took up the issue of race, possibly as as counterattack against the anti-alienism that marked the war. Pointing out blackness could be a cover for foreignness. In Liverpool in particular much of the initiative in the riots was taken by Scandinavian seamen.44 'Patriotic labour' organizations also had some impact in the course of the war. They emerged as a counterpoint to the pacifism of the Independent Labour Party and became a focus for pro-war sentiment within the labour movement; one, at least was personally subsidized by Lord Milner. Amongst their staunchest supporters was the Seamen's Union under the dictatorial and patriotic leadership of Havelock Wilson. Wilson had at first defended the patriotism of Germans within the Union but gradually he became rapidly hostile to them. The union helped to sink the Stockholm Conference for a negotiated peace in 1917 by refusing to transport delegates. In 1916 in Cardiff 'Captain' Tupper of the seamen's union led a physical attack on 'peace cranks'. Patriotic labour, therefore, was an issue with particular resonance in the ports.45 Finally, there was what the press called 'negro aggression'. It is of course a misnomer, but it is unwise to see the black people simply as hapless victims. Black people were amongst those to whom promises had been made to (whether vocal or tacit) in the war and they were often concerned to see them honoured. Many had volunteered in the West Indies for service in the British army and eventually a special Brigade was established. Others had gone to Britain at their own expense and (along with blacks from Britain) tried to enlist; their success depended upon the attitudes of local recruiting officers. They were never welcomed as fighting troops and the West Indian Brigade was broken up for use as pioneers and ammunition carriers in Europe and the Middle East. It was assumed that they lacked courage and that somehow it was not appropriate to pit them against troops of other European nations. The frustrations of the West India Regiment exploded into riot and mutiny at Taranto in Italy in December 1918, when some of the few blacks who had been combat troops were asked to do fatigues for white soldiers. They also resented the

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general level of racial abuse in the army and the fact that they were not given the pay rises granted to other British troops late in 1918. In April 1919 there would be riots between Americans and black South African troops at a repatriation camp in Winchester. More formal black politics may have made some impact too; in June 1919 the Coloured World Democracy Congress petitioned the peace congress in Paris to guarantee racial equality for citizens of the contracting parties. Overall this was a formative period in black resistance and politics and it would have been odd if something of it had not rubbed off on those who found themselves confronted by discrimination, abuse and racial attack in the British ports in the first six months of 1919.46 When the riots broke out the instincts of the British press were to blame blacks for them; this was true in both south Wales and in Liverpool. It may not all have been presupposition. In Liverpool and in Cardiff their use of firearms contributed to the escalation of the riots. Overall the riots cost the lives of three white men and two black. Of course blacks were outnumbered and rarely, if ever, the original aggressors. Yet there is clear evidence that they were aggrieved at their treatment in the war and after it; they were not prepared to accept beatings as they might have done in the past. In Liverpool a black man taking vigorous action on the streets was heard to shout: 'Down with the white race.' 47 Some of the 'aggression' was doubtless unconscious. In Cardiff they broke the bounds of their traditional confinement in Butetown and penetrated an area which had traditionally been an Irish quarter. In Cardiff and in south Wales generally there was a clear sense of restoring the status quo ante bellum\ 'We are all one in Newport and intend to clear these niggers out!' ; T h e blacks ought to be driven out of the town'. The struggle for territory within the city was less clear-cut in Liverpool simply because the physical divisions were much less marked on the ground - few cities could boast an area with so many intersecting boundaries as Cardiff's Butetown had.48 The tone of discussion changed quickly in the course of the riots. The coincidence of the most serious riots in early June led to them now being perceived as a general issue and within an imperial context. In Liverpool where the general press attitude to the early riots is virtually to cheer on the white crowds there was a sudden realization of wider imperial problems and dimensions. There was also the fear that the rioters would enjoy the taste of looting and begin to practice Bolshevism at home. Within a week of the outbreak in Liverpool the Daily Post had learned to take a broad view of the issue: Careful and commonsense handling of the 'colour' disturbances is necessary if what at present is little more than a local disorder is not

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to develop into a serious Imperial problem. There would be infinite possibilities of mischief if any idea gained ground in India and Africa that the isolated conduct of riotous mobs represented the prevailing British attitude towards the black members of the Empire who are in our midst. That the repatriation of a large proportion of them is desirable from various points of view is obvious to most people, and the policy of repatriation ought to be pursued more vigorously than it has been. But it ought to be tirelessly pursued in a spirit suggesting that all that matters is to bundle our coloured fellow subjects without distinction bag and baggage out of the land. That would be base ingratitude. 49 Its less liberal contemporary could see the logic of this, even if it had to borrow its opinions from the Daily Graphic and its interviewee John H. Harris, the African traveller and organizing Secretary of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society: It is as well to recognise, however, that this question of the colour bar is going to be the great post war problem in all the overseas territories. The thing the British public does not recognise adequately is that we are a coloured Empire . . . What we have got to make up our mind on is whether we are going to solidify the Empire or disrupt it. Ours being a coloured Empire, legislation resting on colour is unthinkable, except at the risk of the dissolution of the Empire - or as I prefer to call it the Commonwealth. Think of Great Britain restricted to a white Empire! 50 Few who were thoughtful, and concerned for material comfort, could. They were encouraged in this view by the interventions of the spokesmen of the black community who constantly sensed this weak spot in their opponents and made predictions which were sometimes virtually threats. The view that 'We're here because you are there' was widely articulated, sometimes with a rough and ready eloquence, as from this coloured British soldier: And you can't thanks us for all we have done, and dislike we to live among you people, and you can do this, and I think it will be a Very good Idea too! Simply send us back to where your ships took us from (our native lands). And all your people who is out there making their living, must come back home and make their here. It'll be justice then; don't you think so? And at the same time, we'll stop all the cargoes coming from the Niger's (sic) country's . . . I remember reading in the papers where an ex-soldier making a complain about the coloured men's Employments in England, fancy, if all

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these cargoes were to stop coming over do you think that there'll be any employment at all in England?31 Even the Bishop of Liverpool got the message. He deplored the riots as being un-Christian - Christ had died for all and all were one in him - but he also played the imperial card: As members of the British Empire, upon which the sun never sets, we are bound for our own welfare and for the sake of our own kith and kin, to deal fairly and humanely with our fellow subjects and with those to whose countries our own people are at present living. The story of deeds of violence wrought in Liverpool circulate like wildfire through the world. They are told in every market and bazaar and exchange in Asia and Africa. They rouse the worst passions of a hot-blooded race. They provoke reprisals. They will lead to the shedding of the blood of defenceless men and women of our own race. They bring a slur on our name and a stain on our flag. They lower our prestige.52 In the aftermath of the major riots the issue of race relations within Britain temporarily became an issue which concerned leader writers. The Times did not deign to offer editorial comment, but much of the rest of the national press did. Despite the diversity of the press there was a broad range of agreement of opinion.53 Much blame was attached to the government for its failure to take earlier repressive action against the rioters, and there was criticism of its earlier 'failures' at effective repatriation and sexual segregation of blacks. They sympathized with the anger over sexual liasons ('even with the lowest class of white women') and at the resentment over lost jobs. This, however, did not excuse hooliganism and other solutions had to be found. The terrible warning was the American south with its burnings at the stake watched by huge and enthusiastic crowds. The way to avoid this was through repatriation. It was a magic wand solution for almost every shade of opinion. The secret of the British Empire was held to be the lack of sexual mixing within it; if the American south was an organic society in which each race and class had an alloted place, no less was the British empire, for this strand of conservative opinion.54 Each race was to have its space. Segregation was an increasing trend in the Empire in the late nineteenth century. India had its cantonments, bungalow compounds and hill stations, all of which put physical space between colonists and the bulk of the colonized. The coming of the Memsahib was a symptom rather than a cause of this process, but the increasing sexual distance between the races probably contributed to the worsening position. The pattern was copied in West Africa where there

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were attempts to use urban planning for the purpose. Partly this was to avoid tropical diseases and it was the medical term 'segregation' which came to be applied to the process. Canada and Australia went further with legislation aimed at keeping Asians out, and Kenya's system of native reserves meant increasing segregation of populations. The trend reached its apogee in South Africa.55 Repatriation was an option that was not available in the US. In the aftermath of the Chicago race riots of 1919 Governor Frank Lowden of Illinois wrote: 'In earlier days the colonisation of the Negro, as in Liberia, was put forward as a solution. That idea was abandoned long ago. It is now recognised generally that the two races are here in America to stay.'5'1 This had long been the case because of the realities of the numbers involved. In Britain, it was different. Repatriation was closer to the realm of practical politics; the numbers involved were small and the state might fear the hostilitiy of white workers. Action against blacks could seem like a cheap option. Yet once the matter was placed in its imperial context the attractions of repatriation quickly waned. Free movement of all subjects as one of the rights of British subjects was vital ideological cement for the empire. From the beginning, Home Office officials stressed that repatriation would have to be voluntary. If they wavered in this, there would be plenty of black politicians to point out the error of their ways. As a speaker in Hyde Park in June 1919 put it: 'they were Britishers under the Union Jack, and they demanded protection.' 57 Arabs in South Shields had objected to being called black and had insisted that they were British. It was common for the press to complain that the riots had dented Britain's national self-respect, credit and prestige. The arena in which all these things especially counted was, of course, the imperial one. Britain's economic well-being increasingly depended upon the empire. Whatever the 'needs' of seamen and other aggrieved white workers they counted for little in this wider perspective. While the Empire rested on a platform of segregation it also set out to be what Huttenback has called: '. . . an imperial realm, ruled by a universal monarch, whose subjects regardless of race, colour or ethnic origin were equal before the law . . .'.5X In the interests of imperial harmony - and friendly relations with emerging powers like Japan - the Colonial and Foreign Offices fought against overt racism in legislation. They accepted acts which were racist in spirit, but not those racist in the letter. This was an attempt to preserve what the Colonial official, H.W. Just, called in 1906: '. . . the delicate machinery of the British Empire . . . "the daily miracle of British administration". The British Empire is incapable of being worked, if there is not mutual forebearance and a mutual desire for harmony.' This meant that language tests were preferred to bans on immigration based on racist criteria, and

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indirect rule rather than formal bans on how far native rulers could rise in colonial administration. As far as Britain itself was concerned it meant that there could be no straightforward ban on immigration and settlement of imperial subjects.59 Here especially the idea of the rights of British subjects of all colours had to be maintained. Many words were written on these matters, but quickly there were actions which spoke much louder. Disturbances in Sierra Leone in July 1919 were directly influenced by the treatment of blacks in Britain and more serious repercussions were to come.60 When men repatriated from Britain reached the West Indies in the latter part of 1919 they contributed to the unrest that was breaking out there, and marking the rise of a political opposition in yet another part of the empire. The official world of the white-owned West Indian press rarely reported what was going on in Britain, at least as far as the racial affrays were concerned. The Kingston Jamaica Daily Gleaner was intensely patriotic, constantly welcoming back war heroes, printing reminiscences from the front, and freely using the term 'Red' to describe tendencies that it disapproved of - quite a few of them in the turbulent world of 1919! It gave little prominence to the riots, but mentioned some of the outbreaks and defended the idea of repatriation as an emergency measure in a difficult situation. It wrote off the riots as a post-war aberration and denied that they marked a new phase in British race relations. There was no detailed reporting of events in the British ports, though later there was some discussion of the significance of it all. It must be stressed that this was not through lack of information; a newspaper which can report the spread of rabies in Wales was hardly suffering from blocked channels of communication! It was also international in its outlook with plentiful news of the coming of Prohibition in America and discussion of schemes of imperial federation.61 The Gleaner did eventually produce some discussion of the riots which is more than The Trinidad Guardian achieved. This came after there had been unrest amongst returning troops and the object was to play down what had happened in Britain, and to dismiss it simply as hooliganism and the product of wartime frustrations without any wider significance at all. A case in which a white dock worker was sent to prison for an assault on a Jamaican in London was given some prominence in order to 'prove' the impartiality of British justice. In the end it assumed the moral high ground and went on to the attack: It is infamous for anyone to say that 'the English people' have been ill-treating black people in England. Every black man in London would laugh at such an assertion; he would say it was deliberately

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false. It is equally infamous for anyone to talk about race riots in Jamaica; yet this has actually been said by some miserable creature who has been libelling this island in the American press/12 Yet the news did get through, and it did influence events. Partly it came with the returning men, and was then circulated in the oppositional press. The [Trinidad] Argos had no doubt that there was 'NEGRO HATRED IN ENGLAND' and proclaimed it in banner headlines, based on the stories of repatriated men. It gave a quite full and circumstantial account of what had happened in Britain, right from the beginning of the troubles in Glasgow. Its excursion into Wales probed potent memories: Some of the deeds.of violence committed by the English people are shocking in the extreme. During the funeral procession of a West Indian in Glamorganshire, the hearse was stopped, the coffin was smashed to pieces and the head severed from the corpse and used as a football. The police finally took charge of the body.63 This story resurfaced later in the year during Trinidad's labour uprising, but now more precisely located in Cardiff. The Colonial Office apparently made extensive enquiries to see if it was true, but met with denials from the Cardiff police. This story survives as a contemporary memory. I was first told it by an Arab in Cardiff, who assured me that it had happened in Barry.64 From the summer of 1919 the West Indies began to seethe. There was a rising in Belize in July, the same month that there were disturbances in Trinidad when members of the BWIR were brought home under arrest. By October, after a period of simmering trouble blacks attacked whites in Kingston Jamaica; these were partly inspired by memories of the Liverpool riots. The Gleaner was again at pains to stress that hooliganism in Britain in no way justified it in Jamaica. The most serious events took place in Trinidad at the end of the year. They arose out of the novel experiences of waged labour in the West Indies, and were rooted in the experience of the BWIR and the Taranto mutiny. The employment pattern on the waterfront was dominated by a few large firms. Constant contact with Britain and America helped to build up its class consciousness. Copies of Garvey's Negro World which were banned but smuggled in anyway also had a part to play. The strike was planned and spread from the waterfront to other parts of the island. It also drew on racial tensions. The outcome was the emergence of both trade unions and political parties and the establishment of Captain Cipriani (a man present at Taranto) as the champion of the 'bare-foot blackman'. By its conclusion some 6,000 workers were on strike; they won a 25 per cent pay increase and

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recognition of the union. As always, the local press blamed outside agitators for the troubles; in reality it was a prelude to trade union and political organization, one which would again come to fruition on the eve of the Second World War.65 What matters in this context is the graphic demonstration which it gave of the interconnectedness of the Empire, and the way that messages reverberated around its walls. The issues and the violence did not end in June of 1919, though they reached their peak then. Much of the disturbance was never recorded though it was sometimes alluded to. There were some minor conflicts in Newport, Cardiff, South Shields, Hull and Salford in the early 1920s; The Seamen's Union continued its agitations against black sailors - Arabs in particular - throughout the 1920s, and the memory of the violence of 1919 was never far in the background. It had a way of insinuating itself into discussions. However, the more drastic 'solutions' which had been demanded in 1919 never materialized. Some blacks were repatriated, but relatively few, for they strongly resisted this treatment. In practice the government concentrated its attention on enemy aliens and the Chinese (against whom the NUS had been vociferous throughout the war) who had fewer friends to back their cases. Neither did they raise imperial issues. Nor was there legislation on racial mixing, though the demand did not pass away. The secretary of the Liverpool ex-servicemen's organization suggested that if black sailors were allowed into Britain they would need to be segregated in colonies claiming that it applied in Montreal. The major instrument of British policy aimed at the black population in this period was the Alien's Restriction Order (Coloured Seamen) of 1925. This was a solution very much in the imperial tradition of legislation which was racist in intent but not in the letter. As Tony Lane shows elsewhere in this issue it was a resolution which came out of the competing demands of the Home Office for public order and the Colonial Office for imperial stability. Apparently it arose out of methods evolved in Liverpool, for providing identity cards for black sailors. It was applied nationally in 1925, proving that it was possible to square the circle of domestic and imperial policy. There was no formal challenge to the right of imperial subjects to enter the motherland. That would have been too embarrasing in the wider world and fired a thousand empire nationalists. Instead coloured sailors were required to have an identity card complete with a thumb print (because they all looked the same!) in order to go about their business. They were only excused this proviso if they could prove that they were British subjects. In many British colonies and protectorates there were few, if any, procedures for registration of births or for the issue of passports and other identity documents. In the exigencies of war such niceties had been waived and

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Immigration Officers were instructed not to be too careful in their investigations. All this was thrown into reverse in 1925. The onus of proof was placed upon the coloured man, and documents hastily issued during the war were often revoked. The Cardiff police were vigorous in their pursuit of this policy, but they were not acting contrary to the spirit of the order, as is sometimes suggested. They asked the Home Office for instructions on the matter and were told firmly that the point was that when in doubt, register. This action was a sop to the ultra-conservative National Union of Seamen; it had been government policy to encourage responsible trade unionism, and few were as 'responsible'. In 1926 the NUS defied the TUC's call for a General Strike and Havelock Wilson could always be relied upon to vilify any radical seamen's leaders. It was a very convenient fiction that black people were not denied entry to Britain; it could be trumpeted to anyone who cared to listen. It mattered little, from this perspective if few black people could prove that they were British subjects; that made them easier to control and discriminate against without appearing in the eyes of the world to do so.66 In the 1960s the Institute of Race Relations marked the passing of the 'Liberal Hour' in British immigration policy. For the first time there were formal entry restrictions for coloured British subjects. They made a good deal of the traditions of imperial obligation, of 'the white man's burden' and similar sentiments. In the 1950s British governments still felt the constraints of empire in their immigration policies. The 'liberal hour' had its cynical side, its matching of policy to wider imperial needs. It was relationships of power that determined the kinds of policies on race that could be pursued.67 One reason that Britain was not the American south or South Africa was that neither of those had a disparate and sometimes rebellious empire to rule. One commentator in Liverpool said that America had a particular situation because there were ten million blacks in a population of one hundred million; Britain was different because there were a hundred million whites in a population of four hundred and fifty million.68 This issue entered the consciousness because the resistance of black people put it there. The empire was not automatically conjured up; the politics of black people inserted it into every domestic picture. The riots of 1919 are a violent landmark that denotes the wider process of the urbanization of blacks in the Western metropolitan countries. They were frictions caused by the adjustment to a new situation on the part of white workers and their memories of a time when their dominance had seemed even greater. Blacks, for their part, defended recent gains and drew on different memories which they were determined not to reproduce. The process of urbanization was at is zenith in the metropolitan

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core of the United States and it was there that the most violent conflicts emerged in 1917-19. The greater extent of the violence can be accounted for by many factors.69 The black populations were very small in Britain; 5,000 was claimed in Liverpool but it is doubtful if in reality there were more than 2,000 there. Roughly a similar number lived in Cardiff, that is, about a fourth of the black population of the small ghetto of Cleveland Ohio which avoided serious racial violence in 1919. Blacklegging was hardly an issue in Britain, whereas in America it was vital, in Chicago and East St Louis at least. The relative marginality of blacks in casual occupations like shipping also limited their visibility. In the United States they were beginning to enter the mainstream of the major industries in the period of the First World War. Britain's black middle class was much weaker than its American equivalent and this meant it was less distanced from the white working class. In Britain blacks were often unionized and ethnic politics only weakly developed; there was none of the spoils system which would have encouraged deeper ethnic organization and too few blacks to be able to have delivered much in return. The diversity of Britain's ethnic groups also brought them closer to the white working class in many respects; overall they were a small group but made much smaller by internal division. Cardiff and South Shields had populations that were largely Arab, although Cardiff also had substantial numbers of West Indians and West Africans. In Liverpool West Indians and West Africans were dominant. Ethnic unity and greater numbers would have made them a very different population and more akin to that of the United States. It was partly for this reason that race was hardly an issue in British politics, whereas the Democrats had used it as a prominent campaign issue in both the 1912 and 1916 elections. The only near equivalent is the 'coolie labour' issue in the Rand in the 1906 election, but this affected only the Chinese who were not prominent victims of attack in 1919. Empire, however, was prominent as an idea in Britain and it would have produced feelings of racial superiority. Yet race was much more central in American history; there were very different memories. In East St Louis white fears seem to have been akin to those that had circled around slave conspiracies in the early nineteenth century. It is hard to imagine anything like this in the British context. Slave rebellions had happened too far away to make any deep impact in the popular consciousness. In at least two of the American riots - at Springfield Illinois in 1908 and East St Louis in 1917 - local governmental corruption and vice were precipitating factors which were largely absent in Britain. Cardiff and South Shields had built impressive Town Halls just over a decade before the riots which symbolized civic responsibility and pride.70

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White attacks upon black communities would persist in America into the 1940s; some observers have seen the Detroit riot of 1943 as simultaneously the end of this phase as well as the precursor of the 1960s (and 1990s) style of ghetto rebellion. In Britain where large-scale urbanization of blacks became widespread only after the Second World War the 1919 type of riot was destined to survive into the post-war world. Liverpool experienced them in 1948 and a number of areas, chiefly Notting Hill and Nottingham, in 1958.71 This places themfittinglyin the context of the last gasps of the British Empire which had done so much to shape British race relations. By the time that the Bristol riot exploded in 1980, Britain had moved into a very different world and a very different kind of riot. Its black population, however, remains its most obvious remnant and reminder of empire. For them there is some loss: the empire had always been a useful line of defence.

NOTES 1. David Brion Davis, From Homicide to Slavery: Studies in American Culture (New York, 1986), p.199. 2. Eric Foner, Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and its Legacy (Baton Rouge, LA, 1983) gives an admirably broad comparative perspective. To my knowledge there is nothing for the modern period which compares with the Atlantic scope and insight of Peter Linebaugh, 'All the Atlantic Mountains Shook', Labour/Le Travilleur, No. 10 (1982) and Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World 1700-1750 (Cambridge, 1987); but see Frank Broeze, 'Militancy and Pragmatism: An International Perspective on Maritime Labour, 1870-1914', International Review of Social History, Vol. XXX VI (1991) for a useful start. 3. Labour Leader, 19 June, 1919. 4. Public Record Office (PRO) War Office (WO) 33/26 Major General G.J. Wolseley, 'Our Army Reserve'[1874], p.2. 5. Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Expansion in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1981); John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun (London, 1975; paperback edn. 1987), Ch.IV. 6. A.P. Thornton, The imperial Idea and its Enemies (London, 1959), p.212. 7. David Killingray, 'Labour Exploitation for Military Campaigns in British Colonial Africa, 1870-1945, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol.24 (1989); M. Puris 'Air Power and Imperial Defence, 1880-1919', ibid.; Charles Townshend, Britain's Civil Wars: Counterinsurgency in the Twentieth Century (London, 1986), pp.94-5, 152-4, 195-6; Shields Daily Gazette (SDG), 27 May 1919; David Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force, 1919-1939 (Manchester, 1990); Brian Stoddart, 'Sport, Cultural Imperialism and Colonial Response in the British Empire', Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.30 (1988), The Times, 16 May 1919. 8. Paul Kennedy, Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870-1945 (Fontana edn. 1984), Chs.l and 8; D.A. Low, Lion Rampant: Essays in the Study of British Imperialism (London, 1973), Ch.5. 9. Bernard Porter, The Lion's Share: A Short History of British Imperialism, 1850-1970 (London, 1975), Ch.VII; Kennedy,op. cit.,p. 199;Townshend,op. cit., pp.79-81. 10. Porter, op. cit., Ch.VII; The Times, 25 Jan., 7 Feb., 16, 28 May, 19 June 1919;

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Townshend, op. cit., p.82; Thornton, op. cit., pp.243-6; quotation at p.244. 11. D.A. Low, 'Emergencies and Elections in India', in Gordon Martel (éd.), Studies in British Imperial History (London, 1986), p.208; Derek Sayer, 'British Reaction to the Amritsar Massacre', Past and Present, No.131 (1991); Townshend, op. cit., pp.139, 190-93. 12. Porter,op.cit.,p.252. 13. Liverpool' Daily Post (LDP), 6 May 1919. 14. Liverpool Courier (LC), 3 June 1919. 15. The Times, 2Feb.,\6May\9\9. 16. LDP, lOMay 1919. 17. There is no thorough analysis of the postwar labour unrest, but James E. Cronin, 'Coping with Labour, 1918-26', in Cronin and Jonathan Schneer (eds.), Social Conflict and the Political Order in Modern Britain (London, 1982) is a suggestive essay. See also Bernard Waites, A Class Society at War: England, 1914-18 (Leamington Spa, 1987), Ch.6; Roger Geary, Policing Industrial Conflict, 1893-1985 (Cambridge, 1985), Ch.4; Jane Morgan, Conflict and Order: The Police and Labour Disputes in England and Wales 1900-1939 (Oxford, 1987), Chs.4 and 7 and Kenneth O. Morgan, Consensus and Disunity: The Lloyd George Coalition Government, 1918-1922 (Oxford, 1979), Ch.3. My brief account draws on material in The Times, 25 Jan., 10 and 11 Feb. 1919; Newcastle Daily Chronicle {NDC),1,11,12,13,17,19,20,21,24 Feb. 1919. 18. There is a general account of the riots in Jacqueline Jenkinson, 'The 1919 Race Riots in Britain: A Survey', in Rainer Lotz and Ian Pegg (eds.), Under the Imperial Carpet: Essays in Black History, 1780-1950 (Crawley, 1986) (henceforth, Jenkinson, 'Riots'). 19. PRO Home Office (HO) 45/11897; SDG, 12,20 March 1917. 20. NDC, 6, 11 Feb., 5, 6 March 1919: SDG, 13, 15 Jan., 5, 8, 11, 12, 18, 21 Feb., 4, 5, 6 March 1919; David Byrne, 'The 1930 "Arab Riot" in South Shields: A Race Riot that Never Was', Raceand Class, Vol.XVIII (1977), pp.261-4. 21. Jacqueline Jenkinson, 'The Glasgow Racial Disturbances of 1919', in Kenneth Lunn (éd.), Race and Labour in Twentieth-Century Britain (London, 1985). 22. This account draws on LDP, 1, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19 June 1919; Liverpool Echo (LE), 6, 10, 19, 20, 21 June 1919; LC, 7, 9, 11, 12 June 1919; HO 45/11897 Letter from Chief Constable of Liverpool, 1919; Roy May and Robin Cohen, 'The Interaction between Race and Colonialism: A Case Study of the Liverpool Riots of 1919', Race and Class, Vol.XVI (1974); see also L. Julienne, 1919 Liverpool Race Riots and Charles Wootton (Liverpool, 1979). 23. Neil Evans, 'The South Wales Race Riots of 1919', Llafur, Vol.3 (1980-83); and 'The South Wales Race Riots of 1919: A Documentary Postscript', ibid. 24. Broeze,loc.cit. 25. LDP, 16May 1919. 26. LDP, 1 May 1919. 27. SDG, 1, 25 Feb., 30 June 1919; LDP, 4, 9, 27 June 1919; Tyne and Wear Archives (T&WA) 1070/20 North of England Steam Shipowners Association, Annual Report 1919,pp.45-6. 28. Stephen Richards Graubard, 'Military Demobilisation in Great Britain Following the First World War', Journal of Modern History, Vol.XlX (1941), The Times, 5 June 1919. 29. The Times, \ June 1919. 30. LDP, 25, 29 June 1919; PRO, HO 45/11897 John Ritchie, Mayor of Liverpool to Colonial Office, 13 May 1919. There is a large literature on discontent in the armed forces in the period: David Englander and James Osborne, 'Jack, Tommy and Henry Dubb: The Armed Forces and the Working Class', Historical Journal, Vol.23 (1978); Stephen R. Ward, 'Intelligence Surveillance of British Ex-Servicemen, 1918-20', ibid., Vol.16 (1973); Douglas Gill and Glodden Dallas, The Unknown Army: Mutinies in the British Army in World War I (London, 1985); Andrew Rothstein, The Soldiers' Strikes of 1919 (London, 1980); Julian Putowski, The Kinmel Park Camp Riots, 1919 (Hawarden, 1989); Anthony Carew, The Lower Deck of the Royal Navy, 1900-1939: Invergordon in Perspective (Manchester, 1981), Ch.6.

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31. LDP, 3 June 1919. Daily Chronicle, 12 June 1919. 32. SDG, 3,5,20Feb., 4March 1919; The Times, 19,20,21 June 1919. 33. Liverpool Record Office, Watch Committee for the City of Liverpool, Report on the Police Establishment and State of Crime for the Year Ending 31 Dec. 1918 (Liverpool, 1919); Western Mail {WM) 27 Nov. 1914; Glamorgan Record Office, D/DX 158/1 Minutes of the Sub Committee Organising Club for Girls and their Soldier Friends; National Library of Wales, Cardiff and District Women's Suffrage Society; Annual Reports, 1914-15; 1916; Jenkinson, 'Riots'. 34. T&WA, T 151/33, County Borough of South Shields, Report on Police Establishment and the State of Crime . . . Year Ended 31st December 1919, p. 13. 35. SDG, 26May 1919. 36. LE, 4June 1919. 37. LE, 6June 1919. 38. J. Pellew, 'The Home Office and the Aliens' Act, 1905', Historical Journal, Vol.32 (1988); David Cesarini, 'Anti-Alienism in England After the First World War', Immigrants and Minorities, Vol. 6 ( 1988). 39. SDG, 19, 23 March, 11 April 1917; T&WA, T 151/29/30/31/32/33, County Borough of South Shields, Report on Police Establishment . . . 1915-19; MG/SS/1/61/1277/61 South Shields Petty Session Register passim ; Ethel Roberts, 'A Geographical Essay on the County Borough of South Shields' (TS in South Shields Central Library, 1965), 'The Growth of the Town', p. 4. 40. R. Merfyn Jones, 'The Dangerous City: Liverpool's History of Social Disorder' (unpublished paper, Jan. 1987); T&WA, T 179/326 South Shields Watch Committee Minutes, 22 Nov. 1916; Neil Evans, 'Immigrants and Minorities in Wales, 1840-1990: A Comparative Perspective', Llafur, Vol.5 (1988-91), p. 10. 41. LDP,9Mayl919. 42. F.J. Lindop, 'A History of Seamen's Trade Unionism to 1929' (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of London, 1972); Basil Mogridge, 'Militancy and Inter-Union Relations in British Shipping, 1911-1929', International Review of Social History, Vol. VI (1961); Neil Evans, '"A Tidal Wave of Impatience": The Cardiff General Strike of 1911', in Geraint H. Jenkins and J. Beverley Smith (eds.), Politics and Society in Wales, 1840-1922: Essays in Honour ofTeuan Gwynedd Jones (Cardiff, 1988). 43. University of Warwick, Modern Records Centre (MRC), MSS 175/1/1/2 National Union of Seamen Minutes, 17 Dec. 1911, 20 April, 19 Dec. 1913, 28 March 1914; MSS 175/3/141 ts. pamphlet 'Chinese Invasion of Great Britain: A National Danger. A Call to Arms'. 44. MRC, MSS 175/1/1/2 NUS Minutes, 19 Dec. 1914, 23 June, 25 Nov. 1915; SDG, 5 March 1917. Marika Sherwood informs me that undercutting survived in Liverpool, whatever the outcome of the 1911 strike. 45. Roy Douglas, 'The National Democratic Party and the British Workers League', Historical Journal, Vol.XV, No. 3 (Sept. 1972); J. O. Stubbs, 'Lord Milner and Patriotic Labour', English Historical Review, Vol.LXXXVII (1972); Edward Tupper, Seamen's Torch (London, 1938); WM, 13 Nov. 1916. 46. C.L. Joseph, 'The British West Indies Regiment, 1914-1918', Journal of Caribbean History, Vol.1, No.2 (May 1971); W.F. Elkins, 'A Source of Black Nationalism in the Caribbean: The Revolt of the British West Indies Regiment at Taranto, Italy', Science and Society, Vol.XXXIII (1970); David Killingray, 'All the King's Men? Blacks in the British Army in the First World War', in Lotz and Pegg (eds.), op. cit. ; LDP, 30 April, 14 June 1919. 47. LDP, 10 June 1919. South Wales News (SWN) 10 June 1919 also has this story. In the United States armed black resistance was seen as an indication of the connection of the riots with the Bolshevik plot. Information from Professor Leon Litwack. 48. SWN, 10June, 3 July 1919. 49. LDP, 11 June 1919. 50. LC, 12June 1919. 51. LDP, 11 June 1919.

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52. LE,2\ June 1919. 53. This composite account of opinion in the British press is based on: Morning Post, 13 June; Daily Express, 14 June; Letter of Ralph Williams, The Times, 14 June; Sunday Express, 15 June; Reynold's Newspaper, 22 June 1919. 54. Joel Williamson, A Rage for Order: Black-White Relations in the American South since Emancipation (New York, 1986), esp. pp. 17-29. 55. Anthony D. King, Colonial Urban Development: Culture, Social Power and Environment (London, 1976), Chs.5, 6, 7; Ronald Hyam, Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (Manchester, 1990), Ch.9; Philip D. Curtin, 'Medical Knowledge and Urban Planning in Tropical Africa', American Historical Review, Vol.90 (1985); John W. Cell, 'Anglo-Indian Medical Theory and the Origins of Segregation in West Africa', ibid., Vol.91 (1986); T.G. Fraser, 'The Sikh Problem in Canada and its Political Consequences, 1905-1921', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol.VII (1978); Myra Willard, History of the White Australia Policy to 1920 (1923, reprinted London, 1967); J.D. Overton, 'Social Control and Social Engineering: African Reserves in Kenya, 1895-1920', Environment and Planning D. Society and Space, Vol.8 (1990). 56. Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago: A Study in Race Relations and a Race Riot in 1919 (Chicago, IL, 1922; reprint New York 1968), p.xiii. 57. Manchester Guardian, 16 June 1919. 58. Robert A. Huttenback, 'No Strangers within the Gates: Attitudes and Policies towards Non-White Residents of the British Empire of Settlement', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol.1 (1973), p.271. 59. H.W. Just cited in Ronald Hyam, 'The Colonial Office Mind, 1900-1914', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. VIII (1979), p.43; John Flint, 'Scandal at the Bristol Hotel: Some Thoughts on Racial Discrimination in Britain and West Africa and its Relationship to the Planning of Decolonisation, 1939-47', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol.XII (1983), pp.79-81; Huttenback, loc. cit., pp.280-81; Willard,op.cit.,pp.ll3-15,120. 60. May and Cohen, loc. cit., p. 129. 61. Dfl/fyG7ea«^(DG),4,6,21,23,27June,9Sept.,14 0ct. 1919. 62. D G , 9 , 1 3 , 1 4 0 c t . 1919. 63. The Argos, 18 July 1919; PRO Colonial Office CO 295/521 Government House, Trinidad to Lord Milner, July 1919, and Report by G.H. May, Inspector of Constabulary 29 July 1919.1 am very grateful to Jon Parry for examining this file on my behalf. 64. Conversation with the late Peter Link, 'Paddle Steamer', Butetown, Dec. 1979. 65. Trinidad Guardian, 23 July 1919; DG, 10, 11, 13 Oct. 1919; W.F. Elkins, 'Black Power in the West Indies: The Trinidad Longshoremen's Strike of 1919', Science and Society, Vol.XXXIII (1969); idem, Marcus Garvey, 'The Negro World and the British West Indies', ibid., Vol.XXXVI (1972); Tony Martin, 'Revolutionary Upheaval in Trinidad, 1919; Views from British and American Sources', Journal of Negro History, Vol.LVIII (1973); Bukka Rennie, History of the Working Class in the Twentieth Century -Trinidad and Tobago (Toronto, 1974); Selwyn D. Ryan, Race and Nationalism in Trinidad and Tobago (Toronto, 1974). 66. Neil Evans, 'Regulating the Reserve Army: Arabs, Blacks and the Local State in Cardiff, 1919-1945', in Lunn, op. cit.; Evans, 'Documentary Postscript'; Jacqueline Jenkinson, 'The Black Community of Salford and Hull, 1919-1921', Immigrants and Minorities, Vol.7 (1988); Tony Lane, 'The Socio-Political Relations of Empire: The Case of the Coloured Alien Seamen's Order, 1925', this volume. 67. E.J.B. Rose etal., Colour and Citizenship: A Report on British Race Relations (Oxford, 1969); D.W. Dean, 'Coping with Colonial Immigration, the Cold War and Colonial Policy: The Labour Government and Black Communities in Great Britain 1945-51', Immigrants and Minorities, Vol.6 (1988); idem, 'Conservative Governments and the Restriction of Commonwealth Immigration in the 1950s: The Problems of Containment', Historical Journal, Vol.35 (1992). 68. LC, 12June 1919. 69. The sources for this brief comparison are: Chicago Commission, op. cit; James A.

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ETHNIC LABOUR A N D BRITISH IMPERIAL T R A D E

Crouthamel, 'The Springfield Race Riot of 1908', Journal of Negro History, Vol.XLV (1960); Elliot Rudwick, Race Riot at East St Louis, July 2, 1917 (Cleveland and New York, 1966); William M. Tuttle Jr., 'Labor Conflict and Racial Violence: The Black Worker in Chicago, 1894-1919', Labor History, Vol. 10 (1969); idem, 'Contested Neighbourhoods and Racial Violence: Chicago in 1919, A Case Study', in Kenneth Jackson and Stanley K. Shultz (eds.), Cities in American History (New York, 1972); Allan Spear, Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto 1890-1920 (Chicago, IL, 1967); Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto. Negro New York, 1890-1930 (New York, 2nd edn. 1971); Kenneth L. Kusmer, A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870-1930(Urbana, IL, 1976). 70. Official Guide to South Shields (Durham) 1929, pp.50-53; Neil Evans, 'The Welsh Victorian City: The Middle Class and National and Civic Consciousness in Cardiff, 1850-1914', Welsh History Review, Vol.12 (1985). 71. Ira Katznelson, Black Men, White Cities: Race, Politics and Migration in the United States, 1900-30, and Britain 1948-68 (Oxford, 1973); Edward Pilkington, Beyond the Mother Country: West Indians and the Notting Hill White Riots (London, 1988); Robert Miles, 'The Riots of 1958: Notes on the Ideological Construction of "Race Relations" in Britain', Immigrants and Minorities, Vol.3 (1984); Panikos Panayi, 'Middlesbrough 1961: A British Race Riot of the 1960s?', Social History, Vol.16 (1991); Neil Evans, 'Voices of the Unheard: Contemporary British Urban Riots in Historical Perspective', in leuan Gwynedd Jones and Glanmor Williams (eds.), Social Policy, Crime and Punishment: Essays in Memory of Jane Morgan (Cardiff, 1994).

Class, Race and Nation: The Politics of the 'Arab Issue' in South Shields 1919-39 DAVID BYRNE This study examines the experiences through the inter-war years of the Arab seamen based in South Shields and the community associated with them. It focuses on the way in which those experiences reflected the historic role of 'alien seamen in one of the North Sea ports in which modern seagoing trade unionism was established, and pays particular attention to the issue of the ' Britishness' of the Arabs and the Arab descended. This is set in the context of the role played by 'non-British1 white Northern European seamen on Tyneside before the First World War and the impact of that war on social relations among seamen, and in relation to political developments in housing and poor relief administration in the town in the 1930s. I This study is not an internally derived account of the South Shields Arab community's experience over the past 80 years (for which we see Lawless). Rather it is about the way in which the position of the Arab seamen, and the community founded around them was determined'by the complex national, racial, industrial and social politics of the place from which they worked and in which some of them settled. Thus this is a 'locality' study2 in the sense in which that term is currently employed in Social Geography and Sociology. It is concerned with a place and the way in which the particlar relations of that place affected historical developments. At the same time the idea of locality includes the notion that the specificity of places is a product of particular historical developments. Specific histories make places and history happen in specific places. The history of this community in this place in the inter-war years provides a particularly good illustration of the usefulness of the approach. The study will proceed by considering the implications of a series of events. The first will be the successful 'international' strike of the 'National' Union of Seamen and Firemen (NUSF) in 1911, in which the Tyne ports played a crucial role. The Arabs do not figure in the records of this event. It was played out among British seamen and their 'alien' allies - the non-British Northern Europeans from Scandinavia, the Baltic,

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ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

Germany and the low countries who combined in a very interesting example of 'second internationalism' 3 in practice. The second is the failure of that programme as represented by the First World War. It was the rupture between the British and other Northern European seamen - the Germans were enemies and the rest, with the exception of the Belgians, were German inclined 'neutrals' - which brought the Arabs into the Tyne shipping trades as a source of marine labour which was non-European (an advantage) and 'British'. The third is more a process than an event. It is the programme of redefining the Arabs as non-British which was undertaken by a combination of UK central and local government and the National Union of Seamen (NUS), after the Aliens orders of 1920 and 1925. Much of the material dealing with these episodes has been dealt with elsewhere4 and only a summary of most developments will be given here. The exception will be a more detailed discussion of the role of the South Shields Corporation Public Assistance Committee in the 1931 deportation of Arab claimants for relief, under the provisions of the 1920 Aliens Order. This particular episode is important because it brings into sharp focus the extent to which the 'Arab question' was inter-related with the general industrial and social politics of South Shields. The politics of the Poor Law in the town during this period were dominated by the conflict between the local anti-labour business elite on the one hand and the miners on the other. 5 , a battle which reflected the uses to which the Poor Law had been put during the 1926 General Strike and the much longer miners' strike/ lockout which succeeded it. This immediate and practical dispute was embedded in a wider frame of reference about 'patriotism' versus 'bolshevism', in which there was a complex system of claims and interests. The miners were 'reds' (although the actual relation was much more complex) as opposed to the 'patriotic' NUS officials who had lined up against pacifism during the war and bolshevism after. However, some councillors, whilst remaining Labour in label and supporters of 'indigenous' working-class claims against capital, were amongst the most openly racist in their public declarations. At least one played a key part in the decision of the Public Assistance Committee to seek deportation orders in 1931. David Clark's claim that the South Shields Labour Party: '. . . always expressed a liberal approach to race matters . . .'6 is simply not true. One of the founders of the party in the town, Linney who figures favourably in Clarke's account of the party's origins, was an out and out racist in the late 1920s. Simultaneously at least one arch local 'anti-socialist', Hill, was friendly to the Arab community. Thus the Arab question was embedded, in no simple way, in a wider local class conflict. The final episode which will be considered here is the

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THE ARAB ISSUE' IN SOUTH SHIELDS 1919-39

development in the later 1930s of a specifically Arab street on a new council housing estate, an instance of simultaneous segregation and provision, which occurred after the Labour Party had acquired control over South Shields local politics. With the exception of one brief interlude in the early 1970s, it has maintained this control ever since. II Table 1 (see Appendix) shows the birthplaces of men in South Shields for the censuses from 1911 to 1951. From it we can see that there were only a tiny handful of Arabs in the town in 1911, but in that year there were 1,100 men whose birthplace was somewhere in maritime continental Northern Europe. Contemporary discussion in the press suggests that the vast majority of these men would be seamen. If we assume that 90 per cent were so occupied, then they formed some 30 per cent of the seagoing labour force in the port. This seems a reasonable figure as Havelock Wilson in his autobiography7 estimated that afifthof all seamen in British ships were foreigners, and thefigurewould be higher in a North Sea port. Wilson's views and practices with regard to foreign seamen (aliens to use the crucial term of the period) are of particular significance for the issues dealt with in this study. Originally when, having been a member of the TABLE 1 POPULATION BY SEX AND PLACE OF BIRTH SOUTH SHIELDS 1911-51 (NUMBERS) 1921

1911 Total

1931

1951

100,854

116 ,675

113 ,455

111.600

6

577

419

90

1,142

825

367

375

178

852

751

434

1,360

922

746

715

Aden Men North Europe (excl UK) Hen British Empire Non-British Foreigners* Source: Decennial Censuses.

* This expression was used in the Census Tables to define those born outside the British Empire.

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ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

Australian Seamen's Union, he founded a National Union of Seamen and Firemen in his home port of Sunderland in 1878 he was ambivalent about this important group of potential members. He remarked that: My view was that as long as foreign seamen accepted wages lower than ours it would always be a menace to our trade, and our policy should be directed towards encouraging foreign seamen to organize in their own countries, so as to remove unfair competition. Foreigners of all kinds were plentiful and I found them good trade unionists.8 One of Wilson's earliest Sunderland members was Charles Lindley, a Swede who later founded the Swedish Seamen's Union and was an extremely prominent figure in Swedish labour politics. In the 1880s and 1890s there was some effort by the NUSF to exclude foreigners by means of a differential entry fee. This was free to British seamen and to foreigners with more than four years service in British ships, but increased in increments of £5 for each year less, so that a foreigner with no service had to pay £20 to join. Wilson notes that many did! After 1896 and the foundation of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITWF), in which Wilson and Lindley played a prominent part, the union became more internationalist. Indeed in international negotiations Wilson rejected proposals by the leader of the American seamen to exclude all 'coloured' men from the unions, arguing instead that they should be recruited so as not to represent a reserve of scab labour. 9 It is clear that by the time of the 1911 strike the British NUSF had ambitions to be an all European Union. This dispute was based around a demand for an increase in the rate for monthly paid (foreign going) men from £410 0 to £5 10 0, with an equivalent increase in the weekly coasting trades. It began on the 15 June 1912 and lasted until 29 July when it was settled on terms which represented a victory for the union. Local press coverage in the Tyneside papers10 makes it clear that the employers were also organized on an international basis by the British Shipping Federation, although the German, Danish and Norwegian owners broke ranks early in the dispute and settled with their men on 19 June. The strike's hottest spots were Cardiff and Antwerp. In the latter port there were casualties when the police fired on a crowd of strikers." In the North East the strike was solid, but generally quiet. The Shipping Federation did station a depot ship on Jarrow Slack but few strike breakers were shipped out. It is worth remarking that although some Chinese firemen were shipped out of West Hartlepool as strike-breakers at £3 10 0 per month,12 most of the strike breakers came from that well-known maritime city of the celestial empire, Leeds. Very few of the strike breakers were seamen. Most were general labourers recruited to be firemen, which

THE ARAB ISSUE' IN SOUTH SHIELDS 1919-39

93

occupation was always more accessible to landsmen than deck work. Although many of the Scandinavians were deck crew (and had a reputation for being particularly good seamen) most of the Germans and the small Maltese group in the port were firemen. There is no mention of the Arabs in the Tyneside papers' accounts of the dispute. Ali Said had opened the first Arab boarding house in 1909 and in subsequent events the Arabs always were identified as solid supporters of the Union, so it must be assumed that the small number of Arab firemen did support that strike and were seen to do so. 1911 was a very great success and was internationalist, at least on a European scale. The NUSF had co-ordinated a bitterly fought dispute across Northern Europe and won. All this was completely fragmented by the First World War. It is important to remember that public opinion, including much trade union and socialist opinion, in Scandinavia and, to a lesser extent, in Holland, was generally pro-German during the First World War. There was no particular reason why it should not have been although the Dutch were wary after the invasion of Belgium. Cultural attachments with Germany were strong. The strong and still surviving anti-German sentiment of today in Denmark and Norway is a product of occupation during the Second World War. Even during that conflict much Swedish public opinion was pro-German. Thus in 1914 the Germans became enemies, and most German merchant seamen were called up into the German naval reserve with many serving on U-boats. The Scandinavians became enemy-inclined 'neutrals' suspected of providing victualling services for the U-boats.13 The U-boat campaign was both effective and destructive. It was completely outside the laws of naval warfare as it had been conducted during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at least among European powers. North-East coast took very heavy casualties by sea at a time when the North-East was one of the major recruiting grounds for the army. The Northumberland Fusiliers raised more battalions than any other in the British Army (55 including the two brigades of the Tyneside Irish and the Tyneside Scottish). The Durham Light Infantry was close behind, and much of the Royal Naval Hood Division (which had the privilege of fighting as infantrymen at Gallipoli and on the Western Front whilst dressed up in bell-bottoms) was recruited in the North-East ports. Interestingly whilst infantry soldiers, particularly those who had served in the post-war army of occupation in Germany, had remarkable little hostility to the Germans who were generally preferred to the French, seamen detested them as murderers. However in 1918 the general mood was one of hostility to Germany and all things German, including revolutionary socialism after the revolutions of that year.

94

ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

During the war Havelock Wilson had been the super-patriotic Trade Union leader. He was closely associated with Horatio Bottomley. It was his insistence that British merchant seamen would not sail in ships carrying British delegates to the 1917 Peace Conference in Stockholm which largely contributed to the failure of that initiative. It should be remembered that most British socialists and Labour Party supporters were prowar. The significant divide was between the ultra-jingoistic and the more restrained. Wilson became an extreme example of the former. As the authors of the official history of the National Union of Seafarers comment : As the war continued and the death toll at sea mounted, Wilson's patriotism - his sense of outrage at the methods employed by the German Government to break the allied blockade, and the strength of his anti-German sentiments, grew until they became almost pathological.14 Thus the choice presented to the voters of South Shields in the khaki election of December 1918 was between a rabid jingoist and a restrained pro-war Labour man. Havelock Wilson had already signalled his discontent with Labour earlier in the year in his efforts to get the TUC to disassociate itself from support for Labour in a post-war general election, on the grounds of the pacifism and bolshevism of that party. He had been returned unopposed as MP for South Shields in the autumn of 1918 as the 'Patriotic Trade Union' candidate, following the surprise resignation of the sitting Liberal member. In the subsequent contested election he received Tory and coalition Liberal endorsement and was opposed by Labour's first candidate for the South Shields' seat. This was George Rowe of the Boilermakers, a thoroughly moderate and respectable individual, who had been awarded the OBE for his war work as an industrial civil servant.15 The (judging by photographs and previous and subsequent record) mild and extremely moderate Rowe was portrayed by Wilson as the harbinger of blood in the streets, and an associate of 'alien' bolshevism. It was around this time that the South Shields miners and influential Irish Labour Party threw their lot in with the official Labour Party as a single organization. Wilson won the election very easily in an atmosphere in which revenge against Germans was very much the key theme of political debate. He whipped up a campaign against the presence of any aliens as masters in British ships and succeeded in getting even naturalized aliens banned from this position. Under these rules Conrad would never have been master of a British ship. The whole tone of his campaign emphasized 'britishness' against 'aliens'. The nature of Wilson's relationship with the Arabs may be guessed at in an informed way from the remark of A.B. in

THE ARAB ISSUE' IN SOUTH SHIELDS 1919-39

95

a letter to The Shields Daily Gazette" following the riot of 1930. He observed that the Arabs had always been Wilson's particular pets. It seems clear that Wilson had been quite happy with the importation of 'coloured British' seamen from Aden as a means of meeting the manpower requirements of the merchant marine under wartime conditions. He made no comment on the 1919 Shields riot and it is worth noting that the NUS national campaign against the Arabs followed his death. Certainly spokesman for or on behalf of the Arab community made a point of asserting their Britishness and war service whenever challenged in the period under consideration and in particular following the riot of 1919.'7 Despite the Coloured Alien Seamen's Order of 1925 the Arab question did not emerge in an open way in South Shields politics again until the late 1920s. It seems to have done so in relation to agitation of a complex kind around slum clearance and council housing in the town. The most frequently cited open manifestation of an anti-Arab attitude is the episode surrounding the application for a licence for a seamen's boarding house by Abdul Hamid in early 1929. This had been passed as a more or less routine matter by the Public Health and Watch Committees of the Council on the receipt of appropriate satisfactory reports, but when the matter came to full council the granting of the licence was opposed in the most vigorous terms by the Labour Councillor Cheeseman, a driller (shipyard worker). He declared that the number of Arabs in the town had grown to over 2,000 since the 1921 census (this seems unlikely), that they were a menace to British seamen because of nefarious practices in getting berths, were a source of venereal disease, and in general were an asiatic peril in the community's midst whose true nature was cleverly concealed by their habit of wearing European clothes. He believed in: '. . . a coloured man's country for coloured men and a white man's country for white men.' His language was remarkably like that of contemporary former communists in France who have turned to supporting Le Pen. His amendment to reject their application for a licence was passed by 31 votes to 5.15 This means that it commanded broad support across a council composed roughly equally of Labour, 'anti-socialists' (the largest group), and Liberals. I have not been able to identify individual votes. It is worth noting that a clear divide was emerging in the South Shields Labour Party in these years between 'respectable' long-established councillors who, despite radical origins including in one case ILP membership, had become assimilated into the local establishment and were taking office as JPs (about the appointment of which there was a serious dispute within the Party) and serving as Aldermen and Mayors, and a new generation more interested in the European politics of the

96

ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

1930s. It was in many ways a divide between nationalists and internationalists. The public health theme was to surface in a 1929 report of the South Shields Medical Officer of Health (MOH) on The Prevalence of Tuberculosis in South Shields. He noted that over the 14 years to 1929 197 Arab seamen had died in the town of the disease. This was 8.2 per cent of all male TB deaths, which compares with the 2.6 per cent of the male population which this group comprised. The MOH observed rather pointedly that he offered this information as simple fact, without reference to current debates in the town. It in fact reflects exactly the natural history of the exposure of rural originating populations to urban conditions in which TB was endemic. South Shields was giving TB to the Arabs, but in the town with the highest incidence of the 'white plague' in England, they were seen as a source of polluting disease for others. The solution to the problem was seen, correctly, by the Labour Party as extensive slum clearance. However, clearance of slums in South Shields would inevitably mean clearance of the Holborn area where not only were there Arab lodging houses, but also Arab families (some lodging house keepers) in which Arab men were married to white women. It seems to me that the well-known 'riot' (actually an attack by police on strikers) of August Bank Holiday Monday 193014 must be interpreted as the consequences of competing national interventions in a local situation, which had particular historic significance in terms of the legitimacy of the competitors. These were the National Union of Seamen, founded originally on the North East Coast where South Shields was the most important port, and the Seamen's Minority Movement. The nature of the dispute between them originated in Wilson's wartime separation of the NUS from its radical and internationalist tradition, which he had done much to create, and the consequent transformation of it into a collaborationist and anti-socialist organization, which it remained until the 1960s. The Minority Movement were those who opposed this. Many were communists or under communist influence, but it would be a mistake to see them as simple tools either of Moscow or of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Rather in style and behaviour they remained revolutionary syndicalists (and did so until the 1960s). The great weapon of the NUS against the minority movement was the PC5, the form indicating that a seaman was fully paid up with the Union which, by agreement with the Shipping Federation, had to be presented before articles were signed. In the anti-Arab campaign mounted in 1930 the National NUS used its control over the PC5 as the weapon by which it sought to impose a rota arrangement. This made the Minority Movement and the Arabs into

THE ARAB ISSUE1 IN SOUTH SHIELDS 1919-39

97

natural allies. In many ways it was an odd alliance. Arabs, although having a reputation as being willing to support the Union in a formal sense, were widely regarded as docile labour by employers. In particular they seem to have been willing to work overtime without being paid for it.19 It is also clear that the accusations about the relations between boarding house masters and seamen made by critics of the Arabs, were broadly true, although the critics never indicated the reciprocal obligations which were noted by Collins20 and which were very significant in the 1930s. There was nothing particularly unusual about such arrangements in terms of the relation among immigrants, mediators and a host society. Examination of systems of employment of Irish immigrants a generation earlier on Tyneside reveals very similar patterns. A plausible reading of the relationship among Arabs, the NUS, the Shipping Federation and the Minority Movement would be that the Arabs had been a favoured group of both the NUS and the employers, but were being displaced by the logic of the nationalism which the Union had moved towards during the First World War, as reinforced by the pressures of mass unemployment amongst white British seamen. Tables 2 and 3 (see Appendix) show that the Arabs had certainly progressively replaced Scandinavians and Germans as the 'alien' element in the South Shields labour force. The Arabs had had a position, almost as licensed scab labour. They were never exactly that. They accepted Union discipline and were paid full wages, but they were the visible reserve army of the system.21 The irony is that the racism of the National Union displaced them from that position and drove them into an alliance with the Minority Movement. In the short term this combined action was defeated through a use of the criminal law and deportations. The long-term consequence was that the Anglo (and Hiberno and Caledonio) Arab men of the second and third generation in South Shields became allies of the left in trade unionism in general and in the NUS in particular. Indeed for many years they were the backbone of the Communist Party in the town. The identification of the role of the Arab descended in subsequent industrial politics in South Shields brings into play another very important point about this community. It had almost no immigrant women. The wives of Arabs in South Shields were white. Collins discusses the nature of marriages in his 1950s book and makes many points which were part of 'general knowledge' in the town in the present writer's childhood. The sobriety of the Arabs appealed to Shieldswomen, no less than to employers. Arab men always had a good reputation as husbands and fathers. One point not often mentioned, but worth noting, is that in the aftermath of the First World War there was a large surplus of women of marriageable age. In a working-class world where a husband was seen as the natural

ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

98

TABLE 2 O C C U P A T I O N S O F MEN O F W O R K I N G A G E SOUTH S H I E L D S 1911-51 ( P E R C E N T A G E S )

1911

1921

1931

1951

32,,380

37,,414

39..050

32,416

11

9

9

7

6

3

4

3

% Miners

17

23

15

11

% Shipbuilding

11

17

12

20

Total % Seamen % Dockers and Trimmers

and Marine Eng. Source: Decennial Censuses.

TABLE 3 COMPOSITION OF SEAGOING LABOUR FORCE SOUTH S H I E L D S 1911-51 ( P E R C E N T A G E S )

Total % Arab % Alien

1911

1921

1931

3.611

3.638

3.514

-

17

12

30

25

10

North European Source: Decennial Censuses.

object of life for many women, the availability of an additional pool of men was of considerable significance. The consequence of this was that in South Shields Arabs were both very separated and very connected. The essence of separation lay in alien status. The essence of connection lay through families and claims, as citizens, on welfare goods. These claims were first denied (for single men) and then met (for families). It seems to me that it was this sequential denial and acceptance which shaped the nature of the political and social

THE ARAB ISSUE' IN SOUTH SHIELDS 1919-39

99

relations between South Shields as a whole and the Arabs and Arab descended in particular. The denial was the decision of the Public Assistance Committee (PAC) at a special meelting of 2 October 1930 to seek deportation orders under the 1920 Aliens Order with regard to single Arab men who had presented themselves at the Hartón Institution following a refusal to pay out-relief to them.22 The nature of the Public Assistance Committee is very significant here. The PAC had been created to take over the function of the Poor Law Guardians when the latter were abolished in 1929. The South Shields Poor Law Union had included J arrow, Hebburn and the Boldons. In consequence in the last years of the Guardians, and particularly since 1920, it had been dominated by Trade Union and Labour interests and had incurred considerable debts through supporting miners' families during and after the 1926 strike. The PAC covered South Shields County Borough alone and reflected the 'anti-socialist' nature of the controlling group on that Borough Council. In 1930 it was chaired by the prominent right-wing Conservative Councillor Colonel Chapman, a Chartered Accountant, financier and Builder (and descendent of Bum Bailiffs), who sat on the council as an 'anti-socialist'. The other members included ten other councillors associated with local business interests and eight cooptées, most of whom were similar. Many of these were associated with the South Shields Property Owners Protection Association which campaigned for low rates and no rent control. There were five Labour members including Linney who had seconded Cheeseman's racist motion of 1929. The Council had devolved all its relevant powers to the PAC which acted with full plenary authority. At the meeting of 2 October the members present included the Labour rep Councillor Linney. The motion to seek deportation orders was passed unanimously and there was no Labour movement protest, although as Carr23 notes, there were several rather sympathetic and somewhat shame-faced articles in the Tyneside press at the time the actual deportations occurred. The events of 1930 resulted in a 'settlement' about the Arab question in South Shields, so far as single immigrant seamen were concerned. Their status as gastarbeiter was firmly established. They were recruited through the rota, resistance to which had been the point of the 1930 strike, and they were excluded from citizenship rights to welfare benefits and forced to rely when unemployed on advances from Arab boarding house masters. This arrangement does not seem to have had any financial advantages for the boarding house masters, who seem, at least according to the tone of Collins' account, to have undertaken it as a duty of communal charity. The position of 'families' was, however, not resolved. To understand

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ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

developments here we must turn from the local to the international, and to the rise of Nazism in Germany. One of the key political actors in South Shields during this period was the remarkable E. Gompertz. This man, who was of Dutch Jewish origin, was the full-time agent and secretary of the Labour Party. He had been a convinced pacifist during the First World War and had served three years in gaol in consequence. In the 1930s he was a committed anti-fascist and extended this view into general support for the interests of the Arab community. It is clear that there was a power change in the Shields Labour Party in the 1930s. The old guard of lib-lab trade unionists was dying or being pushed off, and a number of new councillors, including several women were elected to replace them. This group had a very major commitment to slum clearance. Their political opponents included the major slumlords and private builders in the town. Labour's programme now was for council housebuilding to solve the slum problem (although South Shields' Labour Party in the 1920s had had an ambivalent attitude to council house sales). If there was to be slum clearance, then it would have to include Holborn, the quarter in which the Arabs lived (although it would be wrong to describe this as the Arab quarter - many other poor people also lived there). The end result was that when Labour took control of the council in 1936, one of the housing schemes it implemented was the development of a riverside estate, part of which was reserved for Arab families. This development was very contradictory. It was segregated, although white families were housed in adjacent streets. It was of quite high quality. These houses still exist. Many have been bought under the right to buy legislation. They were certainly massively better than the flatted estates built at the Deans and Egerton Square under the 1930 Greenwood Act by the anti-socialists. The Arab families were segregated, although this segregation seems to have been actively sought by community religious leaders.24 None the less, they were provided for, and on quite favourable terms. It was actually a real case of separate but equal! The complexity of the issue is illustrated by a reference quoted by Carr to Alderman Dunlop denouncing the development of flats for the Arab families on the grounds that they would inevitably become slums. This can be read in two ways. One is as a racist statement to the effect that the Arabs made slums. The other, which the actual quotation seems to support better, is to the effect that people were entitled to houses, not flats. That was certainly the Labour Party line of the time.25 After this the position of the Arabs in South Shields became much less of a front line issue. Single immigrants served (and died) as a reserve army of marine labour during the Second World War. The Arab descended served as seamen, but were not confined to Arab stokehold crews. Certainly by

THE ARAB ISSUE' IN SOUTH SHIELDS 1919-39

101

1939 young Anglo (sic) Arab men were shipping out as deckcrew and stewards. Indeed they served in the armed services as well. Carr points out the irony that the son of the man refused a boarding house licence after the racist intervention of Cheeseman and Linney, was killed serving as a Warrant Officer in the RAF.2A In subsequent slum clearances in the 1950s Arab families were not segregated and people of Arab origin are now to be found living through South Shields. The degree of integration is very high. In effect the Arab descended community is dissolving into the general population in much the same way as, and indeed rather more quickly than, the Tyneside Irish (it is of course possible, and is not uncommon, for a person to be both South Shields Arab and Tyneside Irish). One simple point has to be recognized here. Yemeni Arabs are little different in physical appearance from Southern Europeans. Their Anglo (sic) Arab offspring really are not physically distinctive at all, even in the second generation, and certainly not in the third. Swarthy Scots and Irish descended Shieldsmen and women are frequently thought to be Arabs by people from other parts of the North-East, who have coined the odd phrase 'South Shields White Arab' to describe them. The one occasion on which the present author has heard this used perjoratively was by a prominent Tyneside trade unionist to describe the physical appearance of Enoch Powell at a rally called to protest against his racist speech of 1968. This was certainly not an example of political correctness (and was rightly condemned even then), but it is historically interesting. IV There is a straightforward sociological concept available to us for handling the inter-war history of the relationship between South Shields and the Arab community. It is that of 'double closure' as coined by Parkin.27 His classic illustration is provided by the way in which the protestant skilled working class in Belfast maintained a radical anti-employer trade union position (closed above), whilst simultaneously excluding catholics from employment and residence (closed below). Superficially the idea has much to commend it. In Leninist terms it is an expression of momentary interest and it underpins several recent accounts, for example, Mann.28 However, whenever double closure is examined more closely, the simple version starts to fray. Double closure is always associated with some upwards collaboration. Linney was certainly 'closed' against the Arabs, but the representatives of South Shields' capitalist elite, including one of the North East's most prominent financial capitalists and Conservative politicians, Chapman, were the active proponents of their expulsion. If they had been a reserve army, they were of use as such no longer.

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E T H N I C L A B O U R AND BRITISH I M P E R I A L T R A D E

The other important thing is that double closure is always contested by those who assert class solidarity. The role of the Minority Movement in South Shields is very interesting here. Their position was one of active universalism, precisely the internationalist position abandoned by Wilson under the pressures of the First World War. This position seems to have triumphed, in however qualified a way, in the South Shields labour movement in general, through an appreciation of the dangers of Nazismthrough a rebirth of internationalism. This was not an abstract matter. The Shields Gazettes which carry the stories concerning the Holborn council housebuilding, are also reporting on international affairs and on the placing of orders by the Navy for destroyers to be built at Hebburn. Indeed it now seems to me that the Second World War is crucial in understanding the subsequent integration of the Arab descended into the South Shields community on equal terms. Wartime losses in the Merchant Navy were very high. Certainly in South Shields there is very great status still attached to those who served in the Battle of the North Atlantic and on the Russian convoys (cleverly used for PR by the USSR in the Gorbachev era by the repeated award of 'Defence of the Fatherland' medals to South Shields veterans in widely publicized, and rather pleasant, ceremonies held in the town). In this conflict the Arabs were included in, and this was even more the case for the Arab descended who were messmates of white Shieldsmen. This war record in a particularly dangerous service, and in a 'just war', had an inclusive impact. Certainly the efforts of the NUS to revive the 'coloured question' after 194529 came to nothing. This study is more a 'think piece' than the report of detailed research. However, I would contend that the broad outline it offers is correct. The events and processes surrounding the Arab community in South Shields were complex in the extreme. Britishness and internationalism were mixed up, with the former having both inclusive and exclusive characteristics at different times, and sometimes simultaneously. However, at the end, however thin and worn it sometimes was, there is a thread of solidarity which runs through the story. In South Shields there was always some group made up of a given combination of Arabs and/or Arab descended with white seamen and/or internationalist and/or social justice orientated members of the Labour Party, who were sticking up for this principle against those from within and without the working class who rejected it.

NOTES 1. The word 'determined' is used here in the sense defined by Raymond Williams in Problems in Materialism and Culture (London, 1980). 2. See the discussion of this concept in S. Duncan and M. Savage, 'New Perspectives on

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103

the Locality Debate' Environment and Planning A, Vol. 23 (1991), pp.155-64. 3. This term refers to the politics associated with the Socialist Second International. 4. See D.S. Byrne, The 1930 Arab Riot in South Shields', Race and Class, Vol.18 (1977), pp.261-77, and B. Carr 'Black Geordies', in B. Lancaster and R.W. Colls (eds.), Geordies (Edinburgh, 1992), pp. 131-47. 5. It should be noted that mining and seafaring were by no means exclusive occupations in South Shields. Many men went into the pits as boys, to sea as young men, and back to the pits when married, and families would pursue both occupations. At the time of the 1984 Mining strike the local miners' lodge secretary was Walter Slater, brother of Jim Slater, General Secretary of the National Union of Seafarers. Walter was a former seaman. Arab descended men worked in the pits in South Shields after the Second World War up to the mothballing of Westoe Colliery earlier this year. There was also considerable interchange between the shipyards and seafaring, for skilled fitters as marine engineers, for shipwrights as carpenters, and for deck crew as stagers, riggers (the sailor gang) and general labourers. 6. D. Clark, We do not want the Earth (Newcastle, 1992), p. 106. 7. H. Wilson My Stormy Voyage Through Life (Newcastle, 1925). 8. Ibid.,p.98. 9. Personal communication by Yngve Tidman, University of Lund, Sweden, based on his researches into the minutes of ITWF. 10. The Shields Daily Gazette, Newcastle Chronicle and Newcastle Journal. 11. Ibid. 12. Newcastle Journal, 22 June 1911.1 find this figure very interesting. There was clearly a far smaller gap between 'European' and 'Non-European' wages than is the case today. 13. See the use made by Kipling of the term 'neutral' in his naval stories of the First World War. 14. A. Marsh and V. Ryan, The Seamen (London, 1989), p.75. 15. This election is described in Clark, op. cit. 16. The Shields Daily Gazette, 28 July 1930. 17. See Byrne, op. cit. 18. Shields Daily Gazette, 2 Feb. 1929. 19. This comment surfaced in the press correspondence around the 1930 riot, and was repeated to me by contacts in North Shields in the mid-1970s. Those contacts were always careful to point out that Arab descended seamen born and brought up on Tyneside were by no means so docile. 20. S. Collins Coloured Minorities in Britain, (London, 1957). 21. I do not mean that the Arabs were willing to be used against militant trade unionism. Rather that in both World Wars, the Yemen, 'the great demographic reservoir of Arabia', (comment by Lawless at the conference), was the source of a mobilized 'latent reserve army', in Marx's terms. 22. See Byrne, op. cit. 23. Carr, op. cit., p. 143. 24. According to Collins, op. cit. 25. See D.S. Byrne, The Decline in the Standard of Council Housing in Inter-War North Shields', in J. Melling (éd.), Housing, Social Policy and the State (London, 1980), pp. 168-93. 26. Carr, op. cit.,p. 137. 27. F. Parkin Marxism and Class Theory: A Bourgeois Critique (London, 1979). 28. K. Mann, The Making of an English Underclass (Milton Keynes, 1992). 29. See Byrne, op. cit., 1977.

The Political Imperatives of Bureaucracy and Empire: The Case of the Coloured Alien Seamen Order, 1925 TONY LANE The Coloured Alien Seamen Order of 1925 is notorious for being the first attempt by a British government to restrict the employment of black workers. In reality', however, Arab seamen from the Yemen rather than black seamen in general were the prime target. This study argues that the policy of exclusion was initiated by officials of the Board of Trade and the Home Office in Cardiff and South Shields. In opposition were senior civil servants in the Foreign Office, the India Office and the Colonial Office who were at various times in the First World War and afterwards concerned with political stability in the Aden Protectorate. The exigencies of Empire were in this instance a powerful check on domestic racism.

In so far as there is a standard view of the social and political processes that produced the Coloured Alien Seamen Order, the agitation and pressure brought to bear by the then seamen's union, the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union (NSFU), is normally held to be central.1 This interpretation corresponds closely with the well-known ideological habits and practices of the NSFU whose leaders were long-familiar with the use of racist rhetorics. 2 The 'standard view' also conforms with the conventions of analysis of the political processes of social democracies, wherein government policies appear as the negotiated outcome of proposals emerging from within the body of civil society. This study explores the possibilities of a rather different explanation. On the one hand the role of the NSFU as the activating agent in civil society is relegated to ancillary status. On the other hand the part played by officials of varying rank and in different departments of the apparatus of the British imperial state, is brought into the foreground. The author is most grateful to Dick Lawless for his willingness to share his deep knowledge of the Yemen. His advice has materially affected the empirical content and analysis of this essay.

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105

I Widespread anti-German sentiment led to the passage of the Aliens Restriction Act within a matter of days after the beginning of the First World War in 1914. The Act enabled Ministers to impose Orders in Council for the control, supervision, detention and expulsion of aliens. The Aliens Act in 1919 extended the powers of the 1914 Act into peacetime and, inter alia, enabled the brief, direct and unequivocal Order from the Home Office in April 1925: Notice is hereby given that, in accordance with the Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order, 1925, made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, coloured alien seamen are required to register with the Police, whether or not they have been in the United Kingdom for more than two months since their last arrival. Any coloured alien seaman who is not already registered should take steps to obtain a Certificate of Registration without delay. The initial schedule of instructions attached to the order effectively limited its application to the ports of South Wales (Barry, Penarth, Port Talbot, Cardiff, Newport, Swansea), Liverpool and Salford in the NorthWest and in the East and North-East, Hull, Newcastle, South Shields and Middlesbrough. A circular letter from the Home Office to Chief Constables responsible for these ports and advising of the forthcoming Order, said that the measures were being introduced primarily because of the 'problem of Arabs' in their districts.3 'Arab' was never formally defined although the implicit meaning in official correspondence was clear enough - Arabs were persons from Aden, the British Protectorate of Aden, the Yemen whose borders indeterminately shaded into those of Aden and its Protectorate and from British Somaliland in the Horn of Africa, across the Gulf of Aden. 'Coloured' was also left undefined which meant that in practice it was at the discretion of Immigration Officers and the police who could not always be relied upon to see colour in officially approved ways. Maltese seamen were quick to complain and a circular to the police '. . . instructing them that Maltese were not coloured within the meaning of the Order . . .' had to be dispatched. 4 It was, of course, inevitable that seamen from other non-European regions would be caught by the Order if unable to produce credentials establishing UK domicile, British citizenship or the status of British protected person. At the end of the first year of the Order, 7,408 seamen were registered. Six years later, in July 1931, some 4,846 seamen were registered as aliens and of these 2,221 - almost half - were Arabs and Somalis. The table

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ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

below reproduces in more detail the ethnic categories typically in use from 1925 to 1939 and the numerical and proportional distribution in 1931. These figures relate only to those seamen registered as 'aliens' and cannot be read as an account of the total employment of the different ethnicities aboard British merchant ships - although the proportionate representation of the different ethnicities may be assumed to be broadly accurate. TABLE 1 PERSONS R E G I S T E R E D U N D E R T H E C O L O U R E D ALIEN S E A M E N ' S O R D E R , JULY 1931

Ethnicity

No of Persons

% Total

Arabs (inc. Iraqis & Palestinians)

1759

36

Somalis (inc. Djiboutis)

462

10

Other Africans

750

15

Indians & Cingalese

383

8

Malays

198

4

West Indians

793

16

Miscellaneous

501

10

4846

100

Total

Source: Home Office Return copied to India Office. See note 64.

Data on the nationalities and ethnic origins of seafarers is of variable quality. Time series produced for the Board of Trade by the Registry of Shipping and Seamen from the third quarter of the nineteenth century had the categories of 'British', 'Foreign' and 'Lascars & Asiatics'. In 1900 these groups accounted for 71, 21 and 15 per cent respectively of the workforce.5 Another set of statistics, prepared by the Board of Trade in 1924 and 1925 in response to a parliamentary question concerning the employment of 'coloured' seamen, created the category of 'Asiatics & Africans' which seems to have consisted predominantly of West Africans, West Indians and Arabs transiently, regularly or permanently domiciled in UK ports. Indian seamen (generally known as Lascars) and Chinese

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THE COLOURED ALIEN SEAMEN ORDER, 1925

seamen were recorded separately since they were engaged on ships under agreements which specified the obligation of shipowners and shipmasters to repatriate them to the country of origin. The 1925 Order did not apply to Indian and Chinese seamen. TABLE 2 E M P L O Y M E N T O F A S I A T I C & A F R I C A N ' ON UK SHIPS, 1914-25

Year

Number

% all seamen

1914

15 728 22 838 22 551 24 184 22 319 16 601 15 717 10 543 13 349 13 709 16 249 12 037

2.9 5.1 5.4 7.6 6.2 3.9 3.2 2.5 2.7 2.7 3.0 2.9

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Source: Hansard (Commons) [17] 484, 1924 & [217] 1992, 1925.

Seamen from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean were not strangers to British merchant ships in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Indians had been systematically recruited since the late seventeenth century and men from other world regions had been engaged regularly on an individual basis for as long as ships traded overseas, lost original crew members at sea and abroad through sickness and accident and needed replacements. West Indians and black Americans became familiar figures aboard British sailing ships in the second half of the nineteenth century, were paid the same wages as Europeans and were highly regarded for their ability. West Africans became no less common - and no less regarded - once the West Coast trade wasfirmlyestablished in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In the case of each ethnic group initial employment was the outcome of a labour market for foreign-going ships which operated without formal or informal regulation. Systematic, deliberative recruitment of seafarers from different world regions was the result of the development of scheduled services which became progressively widespread as trades came to be

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dominated by steamships. Regular services needed regular crews and steamship owners began to organize their own labour pools. Among the first was Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P & O). Since 1842, 27 years before the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the company had been running services from Suez to Bombay via Aden. Apart from officers, crews were recruited locally for these ships which permanently operated in the region. Giving evidence to a Board of Trade Committee of Inquiry on manning, in 1896, J.C. Almond, a P & O marine superintendent, said they employed Pathans who 'make excellent firemen; but we still stick to the good old Seedee boys as coal trimmers [who] come from Berberer; they come to Aden and take their way to Bombay'. 6On another regional route - linking India and China- a P & O fully-rigged auxiliary steamer was said by its master to have had '. . . Manilla men for Secunnies [quartermasters], six Manilla men, and we had six Chinamen for the crew of the captain's gig'.7 With the opening of the Suez Canal, crews originally recruited in India for the regional trades began to be employed on the forerunners of the modern liners running between the UK and India. Where P & O led, other companies necessrily had to follow if they were to compete in the Indian trade. By the turn of the century all ships trading to India including Danish, Dutch, French and German - had European officers and Indian crews. Comparable developments applied elsewhere. From the 1890s Chinese seamen began to be regularly employed on ships trading from Europe and the western seaboard of North America to the Far East and from the 1900s Kru seamen based in Sierra Leone worked on British and German ships trading to West Africa from Europe and the eastern seaboard of North America. It is less easy to trace the employment of Arabic-speaking seamen although we have already seen evidence of their employment on P & O ships. The 'Seedee boys' referred to above were recruited from the Zanzibaris and Somalis who manned the dhows in the coastal trades from East Africa to Arabia and the Gulf of Aden - although L.P. Walsh, once an adminstrator in British Somaliland, gave 'Seedee boys' a more exotic pedigree, saying they were descendants of pirates who had settled at Zanzibar and Muscat. Walsh also commented on Royal Naval ships on the East India Station as having Somali interpreters who had previously sailed on Royal Navy ships as firemen or officers' servants. 8 It is likely that just as Kru (or Kroo) became a generic term for West Africans and Lascar for anyone from the Indian sub-continent and Malaya, so Seedee was generic for Islamic people recruited in or via the Horn of Africa. In the half century after the British seizure of Aden in 1839 the port once again became the regional hub of trade. Its role as a coaling station

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109

on the route to India was of course enhanced by the opening of the Suez Canal and the growing demand for maritime labour was met by migrants from Aden's hinterland, both from the Protectorate and the Yemen. R.J. Gavin, Aden's historian, has said that by the 1850s, men from Mocha, the port for North Yemen, were greater in number than Adenis while Somalis formed one of the larger minorities in the colony even though at that time 'Aden was. . . commercially little more than an adjunct of Berbera . . .V By the 1890s Aden had fleets of steamers owned by local merchants which served as training grounds for firemen who subsequently sought the better paid jobs on foreign going ships growingly available. In his study elsewhere in this volume, Richard Lawless suggests that French, Dutch, Italian, Austro-Hungarian and German ships were all engaging Arab seamen in Aden before British shipowners did so. Just as recruitment of Asian, African and Caribbean seafarers became patterned and systematic, so too did the apportionment of these nationalities within the shipboard division of labour. If in all cases ships' officers were Europeans, the arrangement by ethnicity of the rest of the crew showed some variation. Where it was normal for ships manned by Indians to find them employed as cooks and stewards, as firemen and coal trimmers, as able and ordinary seamen, ships with Chinese crew members employed them only as catering and engineroom ratings, the deck ratings being Europeans. This latter pattern was also common on ships partly manned by West Africans. For their part, Islamic seamen from the Gulf of Aden were almost invariably employed in ships's stokeholds and rarely as able seamen, cooks or stewards. The standard contemporary justification for the employment of Chinese, African and Arabic as firemen was that they were better able to tolerate the high stokehold temperatures in hot climates (130 F in the Red Sea was not exceptional). Regarding the employment of Indians in all shipboard departments, history was sufficient justification - they had, after all, been employed in East Indiamen and in American clippers as able seamen and had therefore proved their ability in seamenlike skills. There being no such employment history among the other ethnicities, it was plainly assumed that they were only fitted for those shipboard occupations requiring no basis in ship-specific skills. It is interesting, however, to note that only Arabs were excluded from what were regarded as the servant roles of cooks and stewards. Indians, Africans and Chinese were all thought of as suitable servants while in sailing ships West Indians had so much made a speciality of these tasks that black cooks, in particular were almost the norm. The restriction of Arabs to the engineeroom was probably an indirect consquence of that aspect of imperial rhetoric which sorted and sifted subject peoples into martial and non-martial races. Pathans, much

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ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

favoured by P & O as firemen, were also reckoned to be a martial 'race'. 10 Given the military experiences of British administrations with indigenous peoples in Aden and Somaliland, it would be surprising if they had not decided that Arabs also were martial peoples. Such persons, presumably, would make poor servants but stand up manfully to the rigours of the stokehold of the coal-burning steamship." Apart from the evidence regularly given to Royal Commissions and Committees of Inquiry before the First World War emphasizing the suitability of Asian and Arabic people for stokehold work in hot climates great emphasis was also given to their amenability to discipline. Unlike Europeans, they were said to be neither insubordinate nor prone to desertion and drunkeness. 12 What was never admitted publicly was the primary reason, namely the low costs of employment where wages and feeding allowances were substantially lower and accommodation spaces much smaller. But by the time of the First World War most Arabs - unlike Indians and Chinese - were engaged in UK ports and therefore paid at UK wage rates. Arabs, then, were not employed for their cheapness. Their main advantage lay in the fact that they were Moslems and did not drink. In commenting on the reason for the employment of Arabs, Liverpool's chief immigration officer did no more than repeat a widely held view - that Arabs '. . . are frequently preferred by Masters on account of their better discipline and greater energy . . .'.13 European firemen had a different reputation - of being hard men and hard drinkers. Writing in 1914, Adam Kirkaldy, author of the standard political economy of the industry, hoped for the success of the internal combustion so that the 'unhuman' existence of the stokehold could be abolished where ' . . . the heat and the hardness of the life . . . are such that it cannot be wondered at, that many of these men drink hard and lead a hideous existence'.14 In the meantime and for the subsequent duration of the Order and afterward, there were in aggregate thousands of Arabicspeaking people from the regions adjoining the Gulf of Aden who were willing to endure the stokehold for a wage which, although much reduced by the 'tithes' exacted by the labour market's gatekeepers, was still very high by local standards. II The story of the attempt to keep Yemenis and Somalis out of the stokeholds of British merchant ships perforce begins where the records appear to allow it. The first sight of Arab seamen in surviving Home Office files is a copy of a letter from the British Consul in Marseilles to the Political Resident of Aden on 9 January 1917. The letter is about technicalities of

THE COLOURED ALIEN SEAMEN ORDER, 1925

111

identity: the Consul was writing in connection with a small group of Arab seamen who had worked their passage to Marseilles on a French ship and who claimed to be Adenis but who had no papers establishing their identity. Since they needed 'nationality' papers before the French authorities would allow them to be engaged as seamen, could the Political Resident help with some authentication of the mens' claims? Meanwhile, the Consul wrote that he was arranging for the men to apply for registration as British subjects but refusing to grant them certificates of British nationality on the groups that it had been '. . . proved in the past that they became French or British or Ottoman as it suited them and according to the circumstances in which they were placed'.15 There was no ulterior purpose to this letter; it cannot be construed as the opening shot in an antiArab campaign. It was a genuine enquiry. It seems that earlier in the First World War (in 1915) British Consuls in France had been advised to be cautious in issuing papers to Arabs claiming to be Adenis on the grounds that they came from districts under Turkish jurisdiction and were therefore potential friends of the Axis powers. The Political Resident, replying 11 weeks later, said that of the eight applications received only one was from a person born in Aden, the rest of them being natives of 'Arabia'. Nevertheless, he said, it would be 'impolitic' for local political reasons to ' . . . dismiss all trans-border Arabs as beyond the pale of our consideration and to treat them as enemy subjects. Most of them bear little love for the Turks and Aden is the natural outlet for their activities.' Accordingly, the Resident proposed they be treated as British Protected Persons. The Resident also wrote simultaneously to the India Office urging that in the new political circumstances - '[Where] the Hejaz is in train of emancipation from Turkish hands. . . We need no longer treat any of the Yemen as Turkish . . . ' - t h e Foreign Office be asked to tell its Consuls to recognize Yemenis as British Protected persons.16 The India Office approved this suggestion and subsequently proposed to the Foreign Office that British Protected Persons status be granted. . . . Arabs from the adjoining Turkish province of the Yemen who embark as seamen from Aden or who proceed from Aden to the French protectorate for the purpose. There is no intention of raising in this connection the general question of the future status of the Yemen . . . The proposal is made to meet a political emergency created by the war. It seems expedient to accord to these Arabs during the war the limited measure of protection necessary.17 This limited measure would not only allow Yemenis to be engaged on ships in French ports, it would also enable the avoidance of awkward

112

ETHNIC LABOUR AND BRITISH IMPERIAL TRADE

encounters with Immigration Officers and the police in UK ports. Furthermore, given the efficiency of the linkages between Arab boarding house keepers in Cardiff and South Shields (see Richard Lawless's contribution in this volume), it is likely that this simple liberalizing measure quickly led to an increase in the numbers finding their way to the UK. We have already seen from the data subsequently produced by the Board of Trade that from 1915 and into 1917 there was a pronounced upward trend in the numbers of black seamen and it does seem likely that seamen from the Gulf of Aden accounted for a large proportion of the increase. These men were for the most part basing themselves in ports in South Wales and on the North-east coast and finding employment as firemen and trimmers on ships engaged in the domestic and overseas coal trade. While Aden's Political Resident was enabling an increase in the number of Arab seamen - on French as well as British ships - local officials of the Immigration Office, the police and the Marine Department of the Board of Trade, especially in Cardiff and South Shields, began playing a critical role in what can only be described as a campaign to harass and then coerce Arab seamen into leaving the UK. The Superintending Aliens Officer in Cardiff constructed a case for curtailing Arab employment in a memorandum to the Home Office, written only three days after the Political Resident for Aden had proposed easing restrictions on Arab seamen. This coincidence of timing and asymmetry of intention was, as events transpired, quite extraordinarily apposite. In the period leading up to the imposition of the Order and in the years of the subsequent attempts to make it work, there was constant tension between the Home Office and the Board of Trade on the one hand, and the Colonial and India Offices on the other. In their public voices when addressing each other in their meetings, officials from both parties used arguments of social and political order. Where the former claimed the presence of Arabs in the UK constituted a threat to public order, the latter argued that racial harassment caused political problems in the Aden Protectorate. Consequently, where one party was looking for legitimate means of harassment and coercion, the other hoped for enlightened inaction. The Superintending Aliens Officer at Cardiff, a Mr R.A. Bennett, argued forcefully for coercion on 31 March 1917. The meorandum began by reminding the addressee that '. . . in the early days of the war the majority of the Arabs then in Cardiff were Turkish subjects and that they took a grievance to the Turkish Embassy in London stating that Somalis were engaged as firemen in preference to themselves . . '. The writer went on to refer to further disputes between Somalis and Yemenis, of a fight late in 1916 between 'Arabs and Blacks' and of remaining ill-feeling

THE COLOURED ALIEN SEAMEN ORDER, 1925

113

which \ . . a t the least provocation is liable to break into further disturbances . . .'and of a great increase in Arab boarding houses. The memorandum proceeded to a rhetorical climax with suggestions for administrative measures enabling Arab seamen to be labelled as aliens. Specifically, the Superintendent wanted all recently arrived Arabs to be treated as aliens unless they had proof to the contrary.18 This ambition, it may be briefly reiterated, ran completely counter to the recommendation made by Major-General Stewart, Aden Political Resident on 28 March 1917, that \ . . Arabs from South Arabia, including those districts which were under Turkish jurisdiction at the outbreak of war, should be treated as British protected persons . . .V9 In the short term at least the proposals from Cardiff were forestalled by the intervention of the shipowners' national organization, The Shipping Federation. When the Cardiff Aliens Officer got his reply in mid-May, the Home Office had learned that the politics of excluding Somalis and Yemenis was not straightforward and was promoting a policy of caution, saying: . . . this is a thorny question. The Chief Constable, South Shields, recently summoned three Adenese boarding-house keepers for not registering as aliens and the result was an immediate threat of a strike by all Arab seamen on the Tyne. The Shipping Federation also made representations and the prosecutions were, at the suggestion of the Home Office, dropped. I think that the Aliens Officers should put these men, when they claim to be British subjects to the proof that they are not aliens only in cases where they think it necessary, e.g. grave suspicion of any sort.20 The prosecution referred to had already produced a sharp letter to the Home Office from the boarding house keepers' solictor: Prior to becoming boarding house keepers they were engaged as sailors and firemen in the British Mercantile Marine and their discharge books over a period of many years show that they are natives of Aden; in fact they have hitherto travelled backwards and forwards to Aden as British subjects on British passports. They complain of the attitude of the Police and declare that they cannot conscientiously register as aliens well knowing that they are British subjects and many of them at present prisoners of war at Ruhleben in Germany having been taken from British vessels.21 Privately, the Home Office also took a dim view of the prosecution. An

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internal memo acidly remarked that it was '. . . a pity that the C.C. [chief constable] stirred up this hornet's nest'.22 Pushed by its Aliens Officers in the ports, the Home Office had not completely given up in its attempts to restrict the growth of the Arab seafaring population, believing that men were getting into Britain via Djibouti in French Somaliland and thence onward to France in French ships as deck passengers or as crew members. The route from France to the UK and then to Cardiff and South Shields was by cargo-carrying coastal ships. In an attempt to close this route, the Home Office in August 1917 asked the Foreign Office to instruct Consuls in France not to issue certificates of British nationality without reasonable proof of birth in Aden. Helpfully, the author of the letter advised the Foreign Office that regarding claims to birth in Aden, it was normally 'practically impossible to determine whether it is genuine'. 23 This was undoubtedly correct. The fact was that Aden had virtually no records of its population and this had important implications for the operation of the Order once it was in place. The significance of this question will be examined later. At this early stage in the sequence of events culminating in the Order of 1925, the momentum seems to have come almost entirely from officials in the ports, principally Aliens Officers and the senior officers of Mercantile Marine Offices. The latter, often ex-ships' officers, were employees of the Board of Trade and their main function was to ensure that the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Acts concerned with the employment of seafarers were properly observed. The routines of their work brought them into daily contact with seamen, especially ships' masters, and shipping companies' marine superintendents who were responsible for the technical and social operation of their employers' ships. Accordingly, local Board of Trade officials with their long and constantly renewed experience of seafarers were inevitably better informed than anyone else about matters relating to the crewing of ships. Aliens officers, for their part, had quite different backgrounds - either police or army - and when dealing with seafarers must have been heavily reliant upon the special knowledge and intelligence networks of Mercantile Marine Office personnel. One particular function of the Superintendents of Mercantile Marine Offices was that of 'Lascar Transfer Officer'. Lascar seamen (Indians) were engaged under agreements made in India which required their repatriation to the port of engagement in India. Among some shipowners it was a common practice to take crews off ships arriving in the UK or in North Europe and transfer them to ships ready to sail from the same or another port. The Lascar Transfer Officer's job was to supervise this

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movement and to especially make sure that no-one got 'lost' in transit. The office of Transfer Officer had been explicitly introduced in the late nineteenth century to prevent desertion and the subsequent growth of Indian communities in Britain. These special measures were not applied to any other ethnic group and reflected a long-standing racial anxiety about Asian people.24 In 1916 and again in 1918 there was a short-lived panic over desertions by Lascars and their subsequent employment in factories on Merseyside and Clydeside. Letters of complaint to the India Office and the Board of Trade by politically powerful shipowners were sent back down the line to Superintendents of Mercantile Marine Offices who acted very promptly but were nevertheless thwarted in their attempts to get the deserters back to sea. Lever Bros, who had become Lascar employers on Merseyside successfully protested that in a time of labour shortage (1916) they could not manage without them. In Glasgow, the sugar refiner, John Walker, was willing in 1918 to gradually release Lascars to the Mercantile Marine Office to be placed in ships returning to India. However, the men concerned refused, saying they wished to stay and would go to gaol rather than return to India. Further attempts at coercion had to be withdrawn on the advice of the India Office legal adviser because the men refused to name the ship they had left and without that information they could not be identified as deserters and could not therefore be compelled to return to India.25 These politico-administrative defeats cannot have endeared Asians to local Board of Trade officials and it is plausible that these 'slights' weighed with Superintendents of Mercantile Marine Offices when other Asians, this time Arabs, came to their notice. The official record of attempts to restrict the employment of Arabs in 1917 carries not a single mention of pressure of any kind from white seafarers. Yet for more than two decades before the war, seamen's union leaders had been opposing the employment of Indian and Chinese seamen. Havelock Wilson had taken strenuous advantage of his membership of the Royal Commission on Labour and a Board of Trade Committee of Inquiry into Manning to closely question shipowners and shipmasters about the employment of Lascars.26 In the years immediately before the First World War one of Wilson's more disreputable henchmen was engaged in violent provocations of Chinese in Cardiff. But during the war and especially after the German U-boat campaign, union hostility to aliens was reserved for Germans and their allies.27 The first possibility for Aliens Officers and local police forces to argue the case of Arab threats to public order came with the 1919 race riots - but there is no indication that the seamen's union had been pressing for the restriction of Arab engagements at the time of the riots in Cardiff in 1919

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in which Arab seamen were prominently involved. Neither press reports nor official records relating to the riots make any reference to union pressure. Indeed Cardiff's Chief Constable told the Home Office in a telephone call that \ . . the trouble was due in large measure to the presence of the American sailors from the Naval Base. From the first the American sailors, when they saw a coloured man in the streets, were very prone to go for him and this has spread to the soldiers and demobilized men [emphasis added] in the neighbourhood'. 28 In his written report of the previous day, the Chief Constable said there was \ . . no doubt that the aggressors have been those belonging to the white race'. Yet in his final report and despite making sympathetic remarks about black people and about Arabs in particular, he nevertheless urged the Home Office to '. . . give serious consideration to the advisability of immediate steps being taken to repatriate all the unemployed coloured seamen at this Port. If no steps are taken in this direction these men are faced with destitution and they may become desperate.' 29 It was not until 1920 that the seamen's union began to play a more active political role. By this time, however, arguments concerning repatriation and measures proposed for registration had already been thoroughly rehearsed and among the port-based officials were common currency. In the circumstances, it is hard to escape the suspicion that the union's newfound willingness to participate provided local Home Office and Board of Trade officials with exactly the public dimension that they needed. The arrival of the union meant that the officials' arguments, formerly confined to the restricted circuits of intermediate level officials, could now be legitimately deployed in the political arena and therefore less easily set upon by the seniors in Whitehall. The first substantial indication that the NSFU had been recruited to an alliance with local officials appears in a letter from the South Shields assistant Superintending Immigration Officer in January 1920. Writing to the Home Office, the official reported a meeting of a Committee for the Repatriation of Coloured Seamen which had plainly been the outcome of a purely local initiative. Although this committee had no official legitimacy it was nevertheless attended, in addition to the Immigration Officer, by the Superintendent of the Mercantile Marine Office, two unspecified 'representatives of the Mercantile Marine', the local secretary of the NSFU and the senior official of the local labour exchange. The leading figure in this local initiative was the Superintendent of the Mercantile Marine Office who said that he was : . . . having considerable difficulty in the issue of Seamen's Identification Certificates to Arab seamen who claimed to be born in Aden

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and to be British subjects. In most cases there was an absence of proof or connecting link. He further stated that as quickly as he arranges repatriation those repatriated are replaced by other Arab seamen . . . many of whom are discharged at Marseilles, pay their fares to England, and drift to South Shields. The outcome of the meeting was that the Home Office should be asked to request that Adenese seamen be certificated to that effect by the Aden police.30 This proposal was of course an effective reiteration of the one previously made in 1917, from Cardiff - not found then to be inexpedient. But this time the political climate had changed and the Home Office no longer found this a 'thorny question'. The South Shields letter went straight up the chain and then across to senior officials in the India Office. The final view at the India Office was not quite as before. The war might be over but: 'From the political point of view there is a good deal to be said for maintaining the practice of treating all Arab seamen on the same footing as British subjects . . .'On the other hand the India Office wanted now to be placatory and so suggested that this argument should not '. . . be pushed too far in the face of strong objections on other grounds'.31 In other words, a careful line needed to be trodden between the political exigences of Aden and those of the UK. The political imperatives of imperial territories were of no interest to the senior civil servants of the Board of Trade and the Home Office. As the year of 1920 unfolded, firmer administrative measures were promulgated from both ministries. In September the Board of Trade wrote to the British Consul in Marseilles sternly advising him of his duties under the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act of 1919 and warning that the presence of 'coloured seamen' in the UK \ . . is the cause of serious unrest among British seamen, and has led to disturbances and breaches of the peace at British seaports'. 32 In December and after press reports of racial disturbances in Newport, Monmouthshire, between 'Whites and Arabs', 33 the Board of Trade was pressing the Home Office to go beyond its then current practice of refusing to allow Arab seamen to land in the UK as passengers without papers showing British identity: '. . . we do not want the coloured alien to be allowed leave to land even if he is a bonafide seaman, in view of the unemployment among British seamen . . .V34 By the spring of 1921 the view was firmly established in several quarters that the Board of Trade and the NSFU had formed an alliance. Indeed the solicitor acting for the London-based Islamic Society believed that the India Office was also a party. He wrote in March to complain that Arab, Malay, Somali and Indian seamen are the victims of '. . . some kind of

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understanding . . . between the Board of Trade, the India Office and the Firemen and Seamen's Union to exclude the aforesaid men from all mercantile ships . . .'. An India Office internal memorandum commenting on the letter denied the suggestion that they were playing any role but otherwise conceded the force of the complaint: 'The fact is that the Board of Trade, acting in deference to the views of the Seamens' Unions, have taken a strong line with regard to "Coloured Seamen".' The India Office had already been alerted to the sensitivity of this question. In a despatch in February to the Colonial Office, Aden's Political Resident said he had received a complaint from the Amir of Dala, a chief of the Aden Protectorate, that his subjects were being turned out of Shipping Offices (that is, Mercantile Marine Offices) because they were Mohamedans. 35 The spring of 1921 was certainly a critical moment for shaping perceptions of Arab participation in the labour market. The post-First World War boom had collapsed and with an almost immediate impact on the shipping industry. The coal-carrying tramp trades were the worst affected and these were precisely the ships that employed Arabs and Somalis. In late March the Colonial Office was passing on to the India Office correspondence from the Foreign Office regarding 100 destitute Adenes at Le Havre, including one from the Confédération générale du travail (CGT) to the Mayor of Le Havre urging upon him to impress upon the British Consul the need to have these men removed '. . . pour sauvegarder l'ordre publique . . .',36 This same sense of menace had been communicated in a report to the Home Office after a visit to Cardiff by the Liverpool Immigration Officer in February. On being taken into the Seamen's Waiting Room at the Mercantile Marine Office '. . . we found ourselves the only white men in a surging sea of 500 negroes pressing round us offering their services, assuming that I was a ship's captain who had come into the room to engage a crew'.37 One month later the Sergeant in charge of Cardiff City Police's Aliens Registration Office wrote to the Home Office calling attention to destitution of Adenese unable to find ships because of the recession.38 A letter from Cardiff's Town Clerk to the Home Office of the same date recommended the repatriation of non-British coloured alien seamen or the construction of a concentration camp to house them. The Home Office responded by calling for a report from their Immigration Officer who said that although the coloured seamen were 'quiet and patient' they were 'of excitable temperament and it only needs some malignant spark to make a blaze'. He concluded by repeating the Town Clerk's call for establishing a concentation camp for 'otherwise they will soon be in the streets and the local authorities will be unable to cope with them'. Sir J. Pedder, a senior civil servant at the Home Office, commented after reading the report that

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\ . . the idea of a concentration camp for friendly alien seamen in peacetime is hardly acceptable', and commissioned the King George's Fund for Sailors to write a report on welfare needs and make any other recommendations - and provided a cheque for £500 to be used at the Fund's discretion.34 As a result of the gathering momentum in Cardiff - in which the NSFU played a very astute role as confidant of the Lord Mayor4" - a conference of senior officers from the Board of Trade, the India Office, the Colonial Office and the Minstry of Labour was held in late June. The conference unanimously agreed temporary welfare measures as a prelude to a programme of mass repatriation of Arab and Somali seamen.41 Four years later, in July 1925, and just a few months after the implementation of the Coloured Alien Seamen's Order, the part played in its genesis by local officials went unacknowledged and probably unnoticed. A draft letter outlining the history of the Order, from Sir William Joynson-Hicks, the Home Secretary, to the minister at the Colonial Office said: At the end of the war strong representations were made by the National Sailors and Fireman's Union, and supported by the Board of Trade, that steps should be taken to restrict the admission to this country of colored [sic] seamen who could not establish that they were British subjects, since they competed in the overstocked labour market for seamen and were a source of grave discontent among British sailors.42 Although this is an extremely inaccurate account of the antecendents of the Order of 1925, there is no doubt that from 1920 onwards the seamen's union was publicly prominent in the attempt to restrict the employment of Yemenis and Somalis. The union was well-placed to provide the public political pressure barred to officials. It had been implacably hostile to Germany during the First World War, was docile to the point of subservience in its dealings with shipowners and accordingly highly-regarded at all levels of power and influence in the shipping industry and associated state agencies. On the other hand there were civil servants at all levels providing discreet support. However, while there is ample evidence showing the willing participation of officials in the policies and manoeuvres of the early 1920s and beyond, it is far from easy to find much which reveals officials' motivations and attitudes. Scattered phrases and fragments of paragraphs are suggestive of racist assumptions. A Home Office official in an internal memo of a few weeks after the implementation of the order commented T h e British Empire has to endure its own black or coloured subjects: it need not extend the same charity to similarly coloured aliens.' 43 Of the same order of sentiment,

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perhaps, was the knowledge that in British Somaliland a Somali rebel leader had kept British troops at bay between 1900 and 1921 and was only finally defeated by bombing from the RAF. The rebels were something of a legend for the war was often luridly reported in the British press. Known as Dervishes, they were eventually captured in colloquial English in the simile 'like whirling dervishes'. Their leader was presented by the press to British readers as the Mad Mullah, a term recently exhumed in tabloid reportage of the Islamic revival in North Africa and the Middle East in the 1980s and 1990s.44 The disposition of the Chief Constable of Middlesbrough was prosaic by contrast - he commented in connection with the refusal to allow an Arab seamen to land: 'As I noticed that the alien was probably an Arab, and as I am not particularly fond of this class of alien, my Officers have taken more than a passing interest to ascertain whether he had ever arrived in Middlesbrough as a member of a ships crew.'45 Somewhat later, in September 1930, at a Colonial Office Conference on the question of the maintenance and repatriation of Adenes seamen there are background letters from British Consuls in Nantes and Le Havre concerning the arrival there of Arab seamen on their way to the UK. The Consul at Nantes urges action must be taken on the grounds of a looming 'general exodus of. . . Arab firemen from Aden'. While the Consul at Le Havre wanted Arab travel stopped at source on the grounds that '. . . it is manifestly and grossly unfair to miserable coolies of little or no intelligence and very limited means that they should be able to buy tickets in Aden for a journey the end of which is the unsavoury gutter of a French sea-port'.46 It has to be emphasized that these are fragments - and in any case it is dangerous to assume that the widespread existence of racist sentiments necessarily leads to straightforwardly racist actions. Given the structure of sentiments and attitudes of the era in question, there is a quite astonishing general absence of even coded racist remarks in the files of the ministries of state. This suggests that officials implicitly understood racism to be administratively inadmissable. Certainly this would be consistent with the normal processes of a bureaucratic social order where the presence of rule alone confers legitimacy on official activity. Such a concern for making all official actions explicitly governed by rule would help to explain the continual search for legally proper adminstrative means and also why on several occasions officials fell flat on their faces . . . as they did spectacularly in 1921 over a planned repatriation of 1,000+Arabs. Stirred to action by the alarm being stoked in Cardiff as outlined above, the India Office undertook to fund the fitting out of three ships for the repatriation of an accumulating number of unemployed Arab sea-

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men, mainly in Cardiff and South Shields. However, the initial figure was quickly reduced to 800 for the first sailing - of whom in the end, only 180 materialized. The second sailing was supposed to take 500 and took 100; the third sailing could only muster 46 men. On each occasion the India Office plans were undermined by their internal legal adviser who warned that these seamen could not legally be deported. Similar problems confounded every attempt to force out their Arab population - the legal means were not to hand and the informal anti-Arab alliance was insufficiently powerful to secure the legislative means needed to secure their objectives.47 This inability to command sufficient political leverage was a function, it might be suggested, of the localized nature of the question and of the opposition of the India and Colonial Office to any measures creating political problems in the empire overseas. It is also worth noting that throughout the whole episode, shipowners, who were not well-known for their political reticence, show no evidence in the record of any intervention of any kind. No doubt the resistance from officials of the exterior ministries was stiffened by the political skills of the Arabs boarding house keepers in Cardiff and South Shields. The latter kept up a constant pressure via solicitors' letters to the Home Office, the India Office and communications to tribal rulers in their regions of origins. The tribal rulers exerted pressure on local colonial administrators who in turn passed on the complaints to officials of the interior ministries. In February 1922, Aden's Political Resident was writing to the Colonial Office with a complaint from a chief of the British Protectorate, the Amir of Dala, who said that some of his subjects were being turned out of Shipping Offices (Mercantile Marine Offices) because they were Muslims. As inernal minute commenting on the letter said: With regard to the present case it is probably quite true that the complainants have been handicapped in looking for work by reason of their colour. Feeling among the Seamen's Unions is extremely strong as regards the employment of coloured seamen especially when there are white English seamen out of work; it is pretty certain that pressure is brought to bear on the Captains to give preference to white crews; and probably in some cases Mercantile Marine Superintendents have put difficulties in the way of coloured men.48 After the repatriation fiasco of 1921 the coal trade improved somewhat in 1922 and fewer seamen were out of work. In March 1922 the Cardiff Immigration Officer reported that all was quiet and most men were getting jobs. The Chief Constable in Newport confirmed this view and added not entirely gratuitously that'. . . local officials of the Sailors and

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Firemens Union are not of a good type, and most of the disturbances which occur amongst coloured seamen are due to the indiscretions, or in some instances their deliberate actions'.49 Of course nothing had finally happened in 1921 to satisfy those who were determined to squeeze Arabs and Somalis out of the seafaring labour market. As a consequence the same arguments regularly resurfaced until the imposition of the Order in 1925. But this was still not the end of the matter and periodically the same cast of local actors in the ports continued to complain of the presence of Arabs. Perhaps the Coloured Alien Seamen's Order is best seen as a political gesture designed to placate the NSFU in particular and those sections of the population who more generally might be recruitable to simlilar views? There is certainly no evidence of the Order's overwhelming success or of the desire of senior civil servants in the home ministries to introduce harsher measures. It is nevertheless legitimate to suggest that the outcome would have been harsher if Arabs and Somalis had not been imperial citizens with their own means of exerting political pressure. Ill The effectiveness of the Order in excluding new entrants to the labour market and discouraging those already in place depended upon the ability to deny any form of British status to Arabic speakers. Britishness was available in two forms. People of Adenese birth counted as British citizens by virtue of living in a territory administratively under the control of the Government of India. Those who were born in either the Protectorate of British Somaliland or the Protectorate of Aden were British Protected Persons and therefore not wholly British but not alien either. Those who were born in the other Somalilands (French and Italian) or in the Yemen were aliens.50 Formally, therefore, the efficient application of the Order depended upon the ability of Arabs and Somalis and the apparatuses of their 'states' to produce the documentation establishing place of birth. Unfortunately for the needs of British domestic bureaucracy, the 'states' in the region of the Gulf of Aden had no recorded knowledge of their populations and also lacked the organizational infrastructure capable of producing verifiable documents. Accordingly, it was extremely difficult if not actually impossible for British officials, either in the colonies or at home, to determine the validity of claims to one or other of the British statuses. The UK officials in the local police forces, in Immigation Offices and in the local mercantile Marine Offices of the Board of Trade who routinely encountered Arab and Somali seamen, unsurprisingly found it difficult to

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cope with people who rarely possessed any of the papers enabling the operation of a rule-governed system upon which the performance of their official roles was utterly dependent. The archival evidence of attempts at regulating Arab employment under the Aliens Restriction Acts of 1914 and 1919 as well as the 1925 Order, is punctuated with suggestions from local officials as to procedures and documents which might be adopted so that all individuals be made subject to the application of the same rules. In the circumstances the officials' continuing search for clarity of rule is significant. Echoing Max Weber, Zygmunt Bauman has persuasively argued that the distinguishing feature of modern society is above all else its rejection of administrative capriciousness and its insistence to the contrary on the careful delineation of rules and the instances in which they may be applied.51 Without such definition and rule, bureaucracy is simply inoperable. In the case of the Order of 1925 we can see this principle of bureaucracy at work. While it is undeniable that UK-based officials at all levels were almost invariably racially prejudiced in outlook, they were committed none the less to act only in ways prescribed by rule. The complaints, after all, were made precisely because the application of rule frequently led them to admit men they would like to have excluded.52 The problem of finding workable rules for British officials in the designated ports was rooted in the prior practical problem of accurately assigning 'nationality' to Arabic speakers. The difficulties here were threefold. First, and as we have just seen above, there was the lack of an effective 'state' bureaucracy in Aden itself and the complete absence of such an apparatus in the Protectorates. Second, was the persistence of traditional, tribal modes of authority in the Protectorates which were contested neither by the indigenous peoples nor by the Colonial administration. Third, there were no defined and demarcated territorial boundaries separating the Protectorates from adjoinng, 'alien' territory. If these circumstances were the outcome of the haphazard and almost careless way in which these territories had been acquired, the very idea of 'protectorate' was itself empty of any significant meaning by the 1920s. Writing with Aden in mind, R.J. Gavin said: 'Protectorate' is an ambiguous term . . . [which] belongs to the language of international diplomacy and defines an area over whose external relations the protective power has exclusive control. In practice . . . and in common parlance by the early twentieth century, the word had come to be used as a euphemism for 'colony', and implied full control over internal as well as external affairs in the protected area.53

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When, therefore, the officials in the territories each side of the Gulf of Aden used the distinction between 'British citizen' and 'British protected person' they were at best deceiving themselves and at worst disengenuous.54 Where Somaliland was concerned, the basis of the Protectorate was treaties with the different clans, although British administrators were quite capable of regarding clans with whom there were no treaties as nevertheless part of the Protecorate when it suited them. Administration was also made insubstantial by other considerations. The Protectorate's boundaries were notional; the British presence was only significant in a handful of coastal towns and virtually non-existent in the hinterland; the indigenous language was highly sophisticated but lacked a written form, the only form of record acceptable to bureaucratic organization. In the case of British Somaliland it was absolutely impossible for claims to British Protected Person to be either confirmed or denied.55 The situation in Aden and its Protectorate was more complicated. At least until the 1920s the rationale for the British presence in Somaliand was that it provided meat for the Aden garrison, whereas after the opening of the Suez Canal, Aden stood at a strategic gateway on the route to India, the Far East and Australasia. Where in Berbera British officials tried to turn their backs on the hinterland, in Aden the officials needed to look inland and treat with settled and long-established tribal 'sovereignties'. From the 1870s cementing relations with the interior became a significant budgetary element when Aden's government established an official Guest House as a focal point of tribal policy — this being made necessary by growing competition between the British and the Ottoman Empire for influence in the hinterland. It was in this period, too, that the government of Aden began paying annual stipends of $19,000 to sultans in the Protectorate 56 These political linkages were made the more effective by commerce. There were contracts with tribal leaders for the provision of vegetables, grass and fodder to the garrison and, infinitely more important, what Gavin has called the 'lucrative business of labour contracting'.57 The development of Aden as the coaling station at the entrance to the Indian Ocean unleashed a demand for labour to unload the ships bringing in the coal and bunker the ships calling for fuel, that could not be met without drawing upon the population in the hinterland. This new labour market was highly organized from the outset by brokers. According to Gavin, Such men had long flourished in the Red Sea ports, indeed wherever transactions were made between men of different societies and cultures, and the first labour contractors or Muqaddams came . . . from Mocha [in the N Yemen]. . . But British Aden gave this form

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a peculiar opportunity to flourish and put a political power behind it that it had seldom had before.5S By the end of the nineteenth century the bulk of the migrant labourers in Aden came not from the thinly populated areas of the Protectorate but from the peasant-farmed highlands of the Yemen.5y Not that this distinction was of any significance to the indigenous people for Yeminis were culturally one, whether from the Aden Protecorate or the Yemen itself.6" Aden's commercial prosperity depended upon the use of the port as a bunkering station and it was this fact that gave the organization of migrant labour such political importance. Each of the large Aden firms involved in bunkering and otherwise providing for calling ships had its own labour contractor who, in turn, had several sub-contractors. Embedded in this chain, linking the port of Aden with often far-distant places in the hinterland, were the sultans and other tribal leaders who along with the contactors and sub-contractors received a proportion of the migrant workers wage. It was Aden's economic dependence on a labour-intensive industry and its political dependence on local leaders who also derived profit from the supply of labour that minimized the impact of the 1925 Order. Speaking at a Colonial Office conference on the subject of Adenese seamen in 1930, the Resident observed: T h e port of Aden was the natural place to which Arabs drifted from the Protectorate and from all parts of South-west Arabia, and egress from it, especially by dhow, was hard to control.' 61 In these conditions of freedom of movement the peoples of the region could hardly be familiar with European habits and conventions of assigning and certificating identity. They were, however, familiar with the fact of British political dominance in the region since the only available trans-regional institutions were British. When it became necessary for the people of the region to adopt a European definition of nationality, it was natural for them to claim Britishness. This pragmatic and pre-modern attitude to nationality which was perfectly acceptable to British officials on either side of the Gulf of Aden was anathema to British officials in Europe who were required to operate rule-bound procedures. These conflicting attitudes toward national identity, each appropriate in officials' respective spheres were finally irreconcilable. It was not just that Indian and Colonial Office administrators in these particular territories were unconcerned with their subjects' national identity. There was also the simple question of how evidence of identity might be collected. Where the Colonial Office regarded the borders of the Aden Protectorate as 'somewhat indeterminate', the Aden Resident said that any attempt to verify status would involve travelling distances of more than 100 miles by

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camel and take two months at the very least. And even then the enquiry might yield spurious information because Arabs not of Protectorate origin could bribe Protectorate tribal chiefs to declare them their subjects/'2 In the end the origins of the Order can perhaps best be explained through examining the reasons for its failure. Probably the most significant reason lies in what seems like the studied silence of shipowners who could hardly have been indifferent to a group of people who did an appallingly arduous shipboard job without complaint. But given the political withdrawal of the most powerful party, the lines thereafter were drawn by civil servants. Those who by personal conviction wanted to exclude Arabs nevertheless generally insisted upon the application of rule. They stuck to the rules of bureaucracy and normally eschewed capriciousness even though their impatience with the rules led them locally into dubious political manoeuvrings. The officials in the territories and especially those in Aden were committed to their subjects. According to Gavin '. . .the view was firmly held [in the India Office] from the early 1920s that Aden was an Arab town in an Arab land . . . Efforts were made to build up a feeling of local identity among the people of Aden . . .\ 63 Such opinions meshed neatly with the Arabophilia of the Colonial Office officials responsible for the Protectorate. These localized imperial considerations constantly slowed down and weakened the domestic impetus toward promulgating the 1925 Order, curtailed and constrained the exclusionist enthusiasms of port-based officials in the UK and finally undermined the impact of the Order.65 The final balance of political forces within the British states apparatus was in favour of imperial imperatives, which at least in this instance had a liberal outcome.

NOTES 1. Neil Evans, T h e War after the War: Racial Violence and the Post-War Crisis in Britain, 1919-1925', unpublished paper presented to the Vlth Biennial Conference of the Milan Group in Early American History, 19-22 June, 1992; Colin Holmes, John Bull's Island (Basingstoke, 1988), p. 154. 2. Baruch Hirson and Lorraine Vivian, Strike Across the Empire: The Seaman's Strike of 1925 in Britain, South Africa & Australasia (London, 1992). 3. PRO, HO 45/12314, Letter to Chief Constables, 23 March 1925. 4. India Office Library & Records (ILOR), L/E/9/953, Memorandum No. 186 of the Home Office's Aliens and Nationality Committee, 13 Nov. 1925, p.2. 5. Parliamentary Papers, Report of the Committee Appointed by the Board of Trade to Inquire into Certain Questions Affecting the Mercantile Marine, Cmnd 1608, 1903, Mins. of Evidence, Appendix B. 6. Parliamentary Papers, Board of Trade Committee of Inquiry into Manning, 1896, Mins. of Evidence, Q.24,957-8. 7. Ibid., evidence of Capt. John Castle, Q.31,445. 8. L.P. Walsh, Under the Flag & Somali Coast Stores (London, n.d.), pp.237 and 234.

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9. R.J Gavin, Aden Under British Rule, 1939-1967(London, 1975), pp.60 and 52. 10. The eminent Indian civil servant, Sir James Douie, said: 'The Pathan is a democrat and often a fanatic . . . is untiring in pursuit of revenge and is not free from cruelty. But when he has eaten the Sarkar's salt, he is a very brave and dashing soldier. . . ',see, The Panjab North-West Frontier Province & Kashmir (Cambridge, 1916), p. 105. A not dissimilar view was held of Somalis. A colonial officer in British Somaliland approvingly quoted a Bagandan policeman as saying: 'Somalis, Bwana, they no good; each man his own sultan.' See Ralph E. Drake-Brockman, British Somaliland (Cambridge, 1916), p. 1025. 11. It is hard to imagine more arduous work than that done by firemen and trimmers in coalfired ships - the firemen shovelled coal into the furnaces, raked the fires and removed clinker and ash; trimmers wheel-barrowed coal from the bunkers in the wings of the ship and tipped it on the stokehold plates at the firemen's feet. Trimmers could hope to be promoted to firemen and enjoy the higher pay. In an autobiographical novel the avant-garde writer Malcolm Lowry, described the work of one of his Estonian shipmates in the stokehold of a Blue Funnel ship in the 1930s: 'With averted head and smoking body Nikolai shot a slice bar through the melting hillocks, and twisted and turned them. The iron tools blistered his hands, his chest heaved like a spent swimmer, his eyes tingled in parched sockets, but still he worked on . . . He remembered that time in the Red Sea, when Nikolai had rushed up the iron steps, and collapsed on deck, blood pouring out of his mouth. They had rubbed him down with ice and laid him out on the poop to cool. Ah, God might count all his children, but he didn't count firemen, he left that to the Board of Trade.' See Malcolm Lowry, Ultramarine (Harmondsworth, 1987), p.159. 12. The retired commodore ofthe Clan Line wrote in 1939: \ . . put it how you will, I prefer Lascar crews to white ones . . . I daresay there are good white men in the British Merchant Service today - but give me black ones. I never had much drunkenness among Lascar crews, they were always sober and ready when the ship was ready to sail, they jumped to orders, and were good, clean, hardworking, and cheerful men. I had very few desertions among them in the whole of my careeer.' See G.P. Phillips, Two Million Miles on Salt Water (London, 1939), p. 114. 13. PRO, HO 45/11897, Report to Home Office, 17 Feb. 1921. 14. A.W. Kirkaldy, British Shipping (London, 1914), p.268. 15. PRO, H045/11897, British Consul Marseilles to Political Resident, Aden,9Jan. 1917. 16. Ibid., Political Resident, Aden, to British Consul, Marseilles, 28 March 1917; Political Resident, Aden, to Secretary of State for India, 28 March 1917. 17. Ibid., India Office to Foreign Office, 27 April 1917. 18. Ibid., H. M. Superintending Aliens Officer, Cardiff, memo., 'Status of Arabs', 31 March 1917. 19. Ibid., Political Resident, Aden, to Secretary of State for India, 28 March 1917. 20. Ibid., Memorandum from Home Office to Superintending Aliens Officer, Cardiff, 14 May 1917. 21. Ibid., Letter to Home Office from Arthur Ruddock, South Shields solicitor, 10 March 1917. 22. Ibid., Home Office, internal memorandum 21 March 1917. 23. Ibid., Home Office to Foreign Office, 2 Aug. 1917. 24. See, in general, Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, 1978), and in particular, Rozina Visram, Ayahs, Lascars & Princes (London, 1986). 25. IOLR,L/E/7/1073. 26. On other occasions and as opportunities arose, Havelock Wilson regularly briefed sympathetic Members of Parliament who could be relied upon to ask awkward questions. His aim was always to undermine the economic advantage to shipowners of employing Indian seamen and he had some limited success. In 1895 the Board of Trade warned the India Office that it was not convinced of the '. . . propriety of maintaining the difference between the minimum [accommodation] space required for Indian and for European seamen.' See IOLR, L/E/351/680. The depth of the Board of Trade's concern

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could be measured by the speed of its activity. It was in 1901 that the Board of Trade took P & O to court in a test case on the legality of the company providing accommodation for Indian seamen smaller than that provided for Europeans. The Board of Trade won the case but the eventual result was an amendment to the Merchant Shipping Acts restoring the status quo. For an account of the case and P & O's response, see The Times, 2 and 22 June 1901. The House of Commons debate provided, of course, another opportunity for the whole question of the employment of Indian seamen to be raised again. The then President of the Board of Trade, David Lloyd George, responded vividly if not entirely accurately to the critics. Beginning by reading from a petition by Indian seamen calling upon 'Havelock Wilson Sahib' to stop pursuing them with his attentions, he went on to say: \ . . I am told, on all hands, that the lascars are very intelligent, exceedingly sober, hard-working and skillful, and in an emergency they are courageous men . . .'. Thus far the defence was tenable but the rest of it was makebelieve: 'The lascar is an hereditary sailor. He belongs to a sailor caste. He is bound by the rules of his caste to pursue the trade his ancestors have pursued from time immemorial, from the days of the Flood.' See Hansard (Commons), Vol.154, pp.244-5, 1906. In truth and as evidence to the Royal Commission on Labour made plain, if there were Lascars from coastal districts, many others came from the landlocked Punjab and from parts of Bengal far removed from the sea. The typical Lascar, like the typical Arab from the Yemen, was a landholding peasant gone to sea to augment the family income. For a detailed account of the origins and hiring practices, see IOLR, V/26/750/4, Report of a Committee to Enquire into the System of Engaging Native Seamen in Calcutta, 1885. 27. Edward Tupper's, The Seamen's Torch (London, 1938), describes in detail the chauvinism of union leaders, reiterates the author's well-known obsessional antiChinese sentiments but has not a word to say about Arabs. 28. PRO, H045/11017/377969, Chief Constable, Cardiff City Police, to Home Office, 14 June 1919. 29. Ibid., 13June 1919and 18June 1919. 30. PRO, HO/45/11897, Assistant Superintending Immigration Officer, South Shields, to HM Chief Inspector, Home Office, 23 Jan. 1920. 31. Ibid., copy of internal memo, from Secretary of Revenue and Statistics Dept., India Office, 4 March 1920. 32. Ibid., Board of Trade to Consul General, Marseilles, 20 Sept. 1920. 33. Ibid., copies of reports in TheSouth Wales Argus, 9 Nov. 1920. 34. Ibid., G.E. Baker, Boardof Trade, to W. Haldane Porter, Home Office, 4 Nov. 1920. 35. IOLR L/E/7/1103, Raymond Oliver to India Office, 16 March 1921; Minute Paper of Revenue Dept., 1 April 1921. 36. IOLR L/E/l 103, Foreign Office to India Office, 22 Jan. 1921. 37. PRO, HO 45/11897, Liverpool Immigration Officer to Home Office, 17 Feb. 1921. 38. IOLR L/E/7/1103, Aliens Registration Officer, Cardiff, to Home Office, 21 April 1921. 39. PRO, HO 45/11897, Cardiff Town Clerk to Home Office, 21 April 1921; Immigration Officer, Cardiff, to Home Office, undated, c. May 1921 ; King George's Fund for Sailors to Home Office, 10 June 1921. 40. Ibid; see King George's Fund for Sailors letter to Home Office in which Capt. Bosanquet, RN, says, inter alia, T understand that both the Colonial Office and the India Office have been approached by the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union on behalf of the Lord Mayor and that a meeting of these two departments with the Board of Trade is to be arranged . . .'. 41. IOLR, L/E/7/1102, Commerce and Revenue Dept., Conference at the India Office, 26 June 1921. 42. PRO, HO 45/12314, Draft letter from Home Secretary to Colonial Secretary, n.d., July/Aug. 1925. 43. Ibid., internal memo from LP., 24 April 1925. 44. See John Drysdale, The Somali Dispute (London, 1964), p.41 and I.M. Lewis, op. cit., p.77.

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45. PRO, HO 45/12314, Chief Constable, Middlesbrough, to Immigration Officer, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 22 May 1925. 46. IOLR L/E/9/954, Letters to Foreign Office from British Consuls in Nantes and Le Havre, May 1930. 47. For a detailed account of this episode see IOLR L/E/1102, File No.8227, Repatriation and Maintenance of Destitute Seamen, 1921-27. 48. IOLR L/E/7/1103, Political Resident, Aden, to Colonial Office, 22 Feb. 1922; 'Extract from Mr. Baines' Note of 25th March 1922'. 49. PRO, HO 45/11897, Chief Constable, Newport, Mon., to Home Office, 18 March 1922. 50. These definitions were restated by H.R. Cowell, a senior official in the Colonial Office. See IOLR L/E/9/954, 'Minutes of a Conference held at the Colonial Office on the 4th of September, 1930, to Consider the Question of the Maintenance & Repatriation, etc., of Adenese Seamen.' 51. Z. Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Cambridge, 1991). 52. See Letter from Superintending Aliens Officer, Cardiff, to Home Office, 31 March 1917 - HO 45/11897; Letter from Assistant Superintending Immigration Officer, Newcastle-on-Tyne, with attached minute of a meeting of the South Shields Committee for the Repatriation of Coloured Seamen on 20 Jan. 1920, to Home Office, 23 Jan. 1920- HO 45/11897; Immigration Officers' Report, Liverpool, to Home Office, 17 Feb. 1921 - HO 45/11897; Memorandum from Aliens Registration Department, City of Glasgow Police, to Home Office, lOSept. 1925-HO 45/12314. 53. R.J. Gavin, op. cit.,p.276. 54. The administrative problems in the region were not helped by the shuffling of territories between government departments. The India Office administered British Somaliland from its annexation in 1888 until 1898, when it passed under the control of the Foreign Office until 1905. Thereafter it remained the responsibility of the Colonial Office. Aden and the Protectorate were run by the India Office until 1921 when the Colonial Office took over the Protectorate. In 1937 Aden and the Protectorate were merged and passed to the Colonial Office. 55. See I.M. Lewis, The Modern History of Somaliland (London, 1965), p. 76. 56. R.J. Gavin, op. cit.,p. 120. 57. Ibid.,p. 120. 58. Ibid.,p.59. 59. Ibid.,p.l57. 60. Fred Halliday, Arabs in Exile (London, 1992), p.8. 61. IOLR, L/E/9/954, Colonial Office Conference on the Question of Maintenance and Repatriation of Adenese Seamen, 4 Sept. 1930. 62. Ibid. 63. R.J. Gavin, op. cit.,p.255. 64. Between 1925 and 1937 the total number of seamen of all origins on British ships fell by 23 per cent. (See S.G. Sturmey, British Shipping and World Competition (London, 1962), p.296.) In the same period the number of seamen registered under the 1925 Order fell by 33 per cent. (See IOLR, L/E/9/972, Numbers of Coloured Alien Seamen registered under the Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order, 1925, in the principal Police Districts at various dates.) The 'all origins' figure, however, includes crews of ships in the liner trades which were least affected by the depression. Arab seamen worked almost universally in tramps and the coastal coal trade which were most affected by the depression. With these considerations in mind it seems probable that any reduction in Arab seafaring employment was due more to the depression than to the Order.

Strikes! African Seamen, Elder Dempster and the Government 1940-42 MARIKA SHERWOOD There were three strikes in Liverpool by African seamen working for Elder Dempster during the early years of the Second World War. Through the investigation of the 1940 strikers' complaints it became evident that Elder Dempster had a four-tier wage scale: at the bottom were Nigerians recruited in Nigeria; then Africans recruited in Freetown; third were Africans employed from Liverpool and at the top were European seamen, who were paid the National Maritime Board rates. All the government departments concerned- as well as the National Union of Seamen had consented to the company's discriminatory wage policy. Introduction Historians of Britain, with few exceptions, see their subject matter as being exclusively 'White', despite the 2,000-year presence of Black peoples in these isles. Historians of the left seemingly do not notice the Black leftist even when tripping over her/him many times; labour historians also appear to find it difficult to accept Black workers as an integral part of their research. Some pertinent examples: the historian of the Minority Movement barely mentions seamen and hence omits the Movement's advocacy of equal pay for all seamen and support for fledgling 'coloured' seamen's unions. The recent historians of the National Union of Seamen (NUS) deal with Black crew and the Union's attitude towards them inadequately; they also appear not to understand that a seaman could be Black and British.1 It is therefore not surprising that the gross discrimination practised by certain shipping companies against 'coloured' seamen with the connivance of the unions and the government has not been thoroughly researched. This study sets forth such discrimination by the Liverpool-based company Elder Dempster. Elder Dempster and its shipping subsidiaries held the monopoly of carrying freight, specie and mail between the UK and the west coast of Africa from about 1910 until the 1930s. Through its nonshipping subsidiaries such as banking, insurance, engineering, docks, river and coastal transport, lighterage, road transport, coal mining and coaling facilities, Elder Dempster exerted considerable influence on the

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Coast. The company employed African seamen both in the coastal trade and on the voyage from the Coast to the UK; this study deals only with conditions affecting seamen on the 'West Africa run' to and from the UK. The 1940 Strike On 13 March 1940 when the African crew of the M/V Accra, owned by Elder Dempster (ED), were about to sign on in Liverpool, they demanded a wage increase 'to £9 plus the war bonus of £5'. According to Mr Daniels Ekarte, the pastor of the African Churches Mission, ED replied that 'they would sooner give the money to "dogs'", and signed on a White crew at the National Maritime Board (NMB) total rate (wage + war bonus) of £17 2 6. Furthermore, Pastor Ekarte had learned that ED was now hiring Liverpool-domiciled Africans on 'from port of embarkation to port of disembarkation' articles, which meant the company was under no obligation to bring the men back to Liverpool, where most had wives and families. Once the company had rid itself of Liverpool Africans, it signed on men in West Africa with 'promise of equal pay', but then paid them only between £2 and £4 per month. 2 In August another ED ship, the Abosso, was hit by a strike. The African crew issued a statement in which they claimed that (1) greasers had been signed on in Africa at a wage of £8 plus £3 risk bonus; (2) having signed on they were told that as they were to be passengers to Liverpool, they would only be paid £4 + £2; (3) that they had in fact been made to work during the voyage - when they protested no food was served to them; (4) on arrival they discovered that White greasers were paid £12 2 6 plus £5 war bonus; (5) they demanded a pay increase for greasers to £10 per month plus the full £5 war risk bonus. 'We have been told that this country is fighting on behalf of defenceless people. If so, we defenceless seamen are appealing to you to defend us from the tyranny of the Shipping Company,' their statement concluded. 3 The 1942 Strike About the events of 1942 we have far less information. By then labour was very tightly controlled: at the end of 1940 under Defence Regulations 58A seamen were 'reserved from conscription'; seamen ashore or unemployed or in a shore job for less than three months were forced into a Pool and had to take the first job offered. However, they were paid subsistence while awaiting a ship. In May 1941 by means of the Essential Works Order (Merchant Navy) seamen and men who had been at sea any time since 1936 but were not then serving in the merchant navy, were

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registered and forced into the Merchant Navy Reserve Pool (MNR). Seamen who refused to sail, or missed the sailing time were either fined, imprisoned, or both. (It is not surprising that men had to be forced to go to sea - by April 1941 3,896 million tons of British shipping had been lost. In the first 12 months of the war 1,415 seamen had lost their lives.4 Some 'coloured' men, the Colonial Office (CO) discovered, had been prevented from joining the Pool. Men who had been registered were paid 'customary rates, that is, lower rates than European seamen doing the same work on the sole grounds that they are coloured persons'. Mr Keith, the Colonial Office's Senior Welfare Officer, advocated that the CO 'should insist that coloured seamen employed in this country should not be discriminated against'. He was also concerned about the 'grievance' felt by African seamen who discovered on their arrival in Liverpool that they were being paid roughly one-third of a European's wage.5 Not only were coloured men being prevented from joining the Pool; at a time of serious labour shortage there were 350 Lascars and 14 West Africans awaiting repatriation in Liverpool. Unfortunately the Regional Seamen's Welfare Officer's report does not state why these men were being repatriated. Were they some of the men who were being fined or jailed for contravening the terms of the Essential Works Order? Interestingly, the Welfare Officer also reported that of the 'c. 1000-1200 resident Liverpool Coloureds', only 172 were signing on at the Pool or registering at the Seamen's Exchange. 6 Sometime in 1942 18 West African seamen from the ED ships Sobo and Mary Slessor refused to sail because they had signed on for the regular route between West Africa and the UK, but on arrival in Liverpool found that their ships were to be put on a different route. They asked that their pay should be amended accordingly. Elder Dempster refused to comply and the men went on strike. They were taken to court for disobeying orders; the magistrate fined them £6 each. Not surprisingly the men refused to pay. (Apart from the principle, this was probably a month's wage!) When the seamen persisted in their refusal to sail at the 'agreed' wage, the magistrate gaoled them for one month with hard labour.7 (I have not found any other instances of magistrates imposing hard labour on workers contravening the Essential Works Order.) The Liverpool Journal of Commerce appears to have been the only paper to report the court case. The following scanty information comes from a correspondence register at the Public Record Office; the file itself has been destroyed. From these brief notes it appears that the League of Coloured People, a London-based pressure group, heard of the affair and wrote to the CO pointing out that Elder Dempster were to blame as they paid Africans less than the NMB-agreed wage. An MWT official also

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contacted the CO about 'discontentment' arising from agreements opened on the West Coast. The men were released from gaol on 10 October and were interviewed by R.B. Paul, the Seamen's Welfare Officer. Mr Paul notified the CO that the men's goods had been 'tampered with' while they had been in prison. The men wanted to appeal regarding their grievances, and he asked questions regarding wages and accommodation for the men, pending repatriation. By the end of November, with only five shillings per week allowance, the men had become destitute, yet still no ship was found to take them home. One man applied and had been accepted by the RAF. The Trinidad-born cricketer Learie Constantine, then a Ministry of Labour Welfare Officer, tried to find employment for the others, but found that they were not eligible, despite the war-induced desperate shortage of labour. Constantine could not even obtain an issue of free clothing to replace what had gone missing as the men were deemed ineligible for this also. And by now it was winter! In early December the men were still in Liverpool. In July 1943 the MWT notified the CO that the men's belongings had been Mocked in safe custody' and had now been returned to them. 8 The implication of this is, of course, that the men were still awaiting repatriation ten months after release from prison. I have not been able to discover when the men were eventually found a ship. Reactions to the Strikes Although there was little government reaction to the 1942 strike, there had been a flurry of activity evoked by the 1940 strikes. The African seamen striking in 1940 were helped by Pastor Ekarte to disseminate their statement of grievances. The Pastor himself sent copies of the statement to all the relevant local and national government departments. The New Leader, the Tribune and the Glasgow Forward were the only papers to print the story. It should be noted that these were expressly socialist papers; the communist Daily Worker and the Labour Party's Daily Herald did not mention the Abosso; neither, as far as I have been able to see, did any of the other national or local dailies. Elder's West African Review carried the substance of the men's complaints to which ED responded by pointing out that it was paying above the 'West African standard wage for tradesmen' and that by redomiciling its Liverpoolbased crew in West Africa the company was 'limiting the social problem inevitably created by Africans having their homes in Liverpool'. y The circularized statement set the cat among the complacent pigeons in the government. The Ministry of Labour decided to investigate and sent the senior Welfare Officer, Arnold Watson, to Liverpool. Mr Watson

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went to see the University Settlement's Association for the Welfare of Coloured People, and both the general and the seamen's employment exchanges. Being a thorough man, he also visited Pastor Ekarte and Mr H.F. Prescod, a Barbadian bookbinder who had lived in Liverpool for 24 years. In his report Mr Watson stressed that factory employment and even agricultural work was 'barred to the coloured man', though since the outbreak of war the situation had improved slightly. However, coloured men were not accepted on the Government Training Courses. The special wage rates for coloured men were 'undisputed', and 'apparently' accepted by the Board of Trade. The National Union of Seamen (NUS), which required Africans to become union members for all other voyages, did not accept membership subscriptions from men on the 'West African run' (my emphasis) and hence did not represent them. As the coloured men had no union of their own, their wage was not technically an 'agreed' wage or an 'accepted rate'. Mr Prescod told Mr Watson that ED had 'dispossessed coloured employees, some with 20 years standing'; he 'cautiously' agreed with the Pastor's allegations.10 Unfortunately the Ministry's files do not disclose the reaction to Mr Watson's report. The serious allegation that men were working without representation and without an agreed wage was apparently ignored. (Mr Watson may well have been ignorant of another issue affecting African and other seamen from the Empire: Liverpool Central Police Office was, as late as 1937, registering apparently British subjects as aliens. The Police's June report listed 189 West Africans, 19 West Indians, 6 Somalis, 8 Indians and 78 Arabs as aliens." I have not been able to discover later reports, but if in 1937, why not three years later? At the end of 1939 there had been 231 'coloured' unemployed on the Assistance Board Register.12 It is unlikely that the numbers were lower in 1940: between September 1939 and January 1940 the total numbers of unemployed in Liverpool rose from 63,462 to 64,150, according to Hansard. Some eight months later, with the war well under way, The Guardian reported that the unemployed still numbered 23,081.13) On the advice of Arthur Creech Jones, then an MP and member of the Fabian Society and its Colonial Bureau, Pastor Ekarte wrote to the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies directly, enclosing a copy of the Abosso men's circular. He alleged that ED took away its African crew's passports on arrival in Liverpool and exchanged them for an ED 'green card'. Without a passport and with this green card, supposedly only issued to aliens, the men could not prove that they were British. As at that time it was extremely difficult for seamen deemed 'aliens' to obtain work, this was the technique ED used to ensure its ill-paid African crews did not seek work elsewhere. ED threatened the men that if they refused to

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hand over their passports the company would never employ them again.I4 The Colonial Office now also had to investigate. It queried the NUS, who replied that Pastor Ekarte's allegations were correct. There had been previous protests by Africans employed by ED, but as these had been verbal, no records had been kept.15 The Accra had indeed sailed with a White crew on NMB rates; in Lagos these men had been discharged and brought back to Liverpool as passengers. A crew of 'raw' Lagos men had been signed on, at £8 per month plus £3 war risk bonus. Because of the change in ED's policy to recruit men in Lagos, 60 Liverpool Africans had been 'displaced', but 'in many cases' these men had been 'absorbed in other industries'. As the unequal wages were of long-standing and had been agreed by all concerned, the NUS did not understand why there was suddenly a problem.16 Elder Dempster's reply to the Colonial Office's request for information attempted to turn the tables on the government, which, the company wrote, had some years previously wanted to reduce Britain's Black population with the help of the shipping companies. 'Elders have taken the decision to base the employment of these men upon West Africa instead of Liverpool. As you know, for long enough the presence of free negro labour in Liverpool has been a source of serious social anxiety, and war conditions have inevitably emphasised the evil/ The Africans were being paid £4 plus £2 was bonus. (Not £8 as the NUS had claimed; the NMB rate was a total of £17 2 6.) The company claimed that the Abosso men had not been told that they would be passengers; they had worked on deck, not in the engine room. 'But', ED concluded unequivocally, these inaccuracies are immaterial to the main issue which is that the employment of West Africans on Elders' ships will henceforth be based upon a generous reference to West African conditions and all consequent conduct and discipline in the company will rest thereon . . . We refer you to the correspondence in 1927 and 1928 when you and the Home Office asked us to open and close articles in West Africa.17 It was not an ED official, or even general manager who signed this missive; it bears the signature of an especially well-connected director of the company, Leonard Cripps, brother of Stafford, ex-MP and at that time ambassador to Moscow.IS (One wonders whether the threat about 'conduct and discipline' implied that the company thought it could flog its employees, as the army flogged its recruits.) That this 'free negro labour' had been brought to the UK by Elders, what the 'evil' was, why it was exacerbated by the war and why the

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company had taken 12 years to implement a Home Office request of 1928, ED did not feel obliged to explain. The question of unequal pay the company did not even deign to mention. (Though a minor point, I do wonder whether the standard war risk bonus of £5 per month - later increased to £10 - was claimed/received by ED. That is, was the total wage of £6 made up of £5 government war risk bonus and £1 from ED? A few months later a Colonial Office official noted in a memo that West Africans were paid £2 war risk bonus 'but Elder Dempster get a government subsidy of £5 per month'. 19 Very interestingly, in another context the CO's J.L. Keith had drafted a letter to the Ministry of Labour whose concluding sentence was: 'We are at present having some correspondence with the Ministry of Shipping about conditions of employment by the Elder Dempster Co. which we feel are open to exception on this as well as on other grounds.' This sentence was omitted from the letter eventually sent. The date of the revised letter was 10 October, that is after the CO had received a 'warning' letter from Shipping (see below).2" Naturally, Pastor Ekarte had also written to the Ministry of Shipping. The Ministry sought information from the Conciliation Officer in Liverpool. This government official, perhaps not immune to Elder's influence in that city, reported that Pastor Ekarte was 'using his position as a cloak for subversive activity'. He had been in touch with the city's Immigration Officer, who had told him that Pastor Ekarte would probably be deported. Conditions of employment for West Africans were satisfactory. The discriminatory wages had been agreed by the NUS, who stated that the West Africans would be eligible for membership if they received standard NMB wage rates. (How they were to obtain this when the union itself had agreed to ED's lower rates, the NUS did not reveal. But the NUS did get a large annual donation from Elders.) The manager of the Exchange had told him that the reversion to recruiting 'raw Africans' from Lagos had been approved by the Home Office and the Colonial Office.21 In the letter to the CO enclosing the Conciliation Officer's report, the Ministry of Shipping also included a copy of its letter to the First Sea Lord's secretary, who had obviously also received the Ekarte circular. The Ministry informed Mr Sendall that ED 'had considerable difficulty with West Africans resident in Liverpool . . . They want an increase in wages though they've had an increase and receive the same war risk bonus as white seamen.' It was this that had led ED to revert to recruiting in West Africa with the full approval of the CO and the Board of Trade. 'You probably know that Elder Dempster Company is very closely associated with Alfred Holt & Co. (Blue Funnel Line), which has a very good reputation as employers of labour', Mr Guttery of the Ministry

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informed the CO's J.J. Paskin. 'We are now in touch with MI5 as to the alleged subversive activities of Pastor Ekarte', the letter concluded.22 By mentioning the association between ED and Alfred Holt & Co., was the Ministry warning the CO not to meddle with one of the largest British shipping combines? Is the recruitment of MI5, rather than the local CID/ police/Immigration Officer an indication of the power of these companies? Was it really necessary to call on MI5 to investigate the alleged subversive activities of one lone African in Liverpool? And what were these activities? Challenging the might of Elder Dempster? What was the company's 'difficulty' with African seamen domiciled in Britain? Did they want equal pay with white Britons? It seems that no one deemed it appropriate to ask such questions. On 30 November the Ministry wrote again to Mr Paskin: 'we have now heard from MI5 that there is strong reason to doubt the bona fides of Pastor Ekarte, and that the matter is under discussion with the Police with a view to suitable action being taken'. Though the intervening letters have not been preserved, clearly the matter had not ended there as the final letter in the file, dated 13 February 1941, is from the NUS to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the Colonies, confirming that 'the facts contained in the Ministry of Labour's Conciliation Officer's report are substantially correct' - yet previously they had confirmed as correct a somewhat different version of the story!23 Also in February Mr Ekarte asked the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) for help. Writing 'through the kindness of George Padmore', the Pastor asked for an introduction to the NCCL branch in Liverpool as he wanted to 'obtain redress for my brethren'. 24 Had he realized that his efforts were not bearing fruit? Was he being hassled by the police? People I have interviewed in Liverpool recollect such police harassment, but could not give an exact date. As no subversive activity could be pinned on Mr Ekarte, he remained a thorn in the shipping company's flesh: to quote Ivor Cummings, the CO's then sole 'coloured' welfare officer: 'Ekarte is not very popular in shipping company circles on account of the attitude he has adopted regarding the war-time policy of Elder Dempster . . . He has also incurred the displeasure of the police although they make no specific charges against him.'25 It is not surprising therefore to find that the Colonial Office found it easy to ignore Pastor Ekarte's suggestions that all African seamen should become members of the NUS and thus receive NMB wages, and that this wage should be backdated to the date of engagement. In fact, the CO's main concern was with 'disaffection' in Liverpool, of which they had received warnings from the Association for the Welfare of Coloured People (see below). They also had a very particular kind of concern about

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the colonies: as O.G.R. Williams noted (nd), 'we shall need to watch the political effects closely . . . It is obviously desirable to avoid creating serious discontent'.26 Another government department became concerned with 'disaffection': the Ministry of Information (MOI) also picked up on the troubles in Liverpool and voiced its concern to the CO as early as October 1940. If West African seamen are disgruntled this should not be ignored as they travel the world. The MOI had heard that illiterate Africans were having problems with pensions for the families of men lost at sea, and with compensation for injuries. (How had the MOI heard of this? Could it have been through George Padmore who earned his living as a journalist and under war regulations had to register and work through the MOI? Or through its own systematic intelligence gathering?) The MOI asked the CO for information.27 The position of coloured men in Liverpool now unemployed because of ED's new policy of recruiting in West Africa also caused concern to the city's Association for the Welfare of Coloured People. The Association informed Lord Moyne, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that the company was supposed to repatriate non-domiciled West Africans, but most of the men refused repatriation because if they were re-engaged in West Africa they woud be paid even lower wages than what ED paid in Liverpool. There was a serious danger of disaffection, the Association warned.28 The MOI's allegation about pensions and hence possibly other entitlements led to a long correspondence between the CO and the Ministry of Shipping. The Ministry claimed that there were no problems with pensions; nevertheless it was sending application forms for compensation under the War Pensions Scheme to Lagos and Freetown. (One has thus to presume that there had been no problem because without forms no applications had been made.) This correspondence also brought to light more information about ED. The company was now recruiting in both Lagos and Freetown. Wages were £7 12 6 ex-Freetown and £5-£6 ex-Lagos, both including £2 war risk bonus.29 The Ministry agreed with the Shipping Federation (the employers' 'union') that the bonus should be related to basic wages and that the NMB had 'recognised the long-established practice to pay coloured crews engaged in this country lower basic rates than the NMB rates for white ratings' (my emphasis). Wages were negotiated between firms and 'the responsible bodies of seamen', or with individuals. But, as we know from Mr Watson's report, there was no 'responsible body' representing African seamen; obviously Liverpool-based Africans on the 'West African run' had to take whatever wage was offered to them. It

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should also be noted that the Ministry was confusing the issue of unequal pay for Liverpool-domiciled Africans with the issue of even lower pay for West Africa-domiciled seamen. The Colonial Office took up the question of the war risk bonus with the Ministry of Shipping. Mr Cummings had been told in Liverpool that ED wages included the 'government subsidy' of £5 per month. Yet the Ministry had previously informed the CO that the bonus included in the West Africans' wage was £2. West Indians who were then being recruited in the Caribbean for the Pool had been offered £7; Fijians got £1 10 0. Why these differences? The Ministry replied that wages were negotiated between owners and 'responsible bodies of seamen or with individuals'. ED paid £3 ex-Lagos and £5 ex-Freetown. 'The shipowners say, and we agree, that the war bonus should be related to the "general level of basic wages" . . . It is a long established practice to pay coloured crews engaged in this country lower basic rates than NMB rates for white ratings. This custom is recognized by the Board of Trade', the Ministry informed the Colonial Office.30 The communication from the Association for the Welfare of Coloured People (see above) resulted in Secretary of State for the Colonies Lord Moyne seeking the 'observations' of the governors of Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Acting Governor Alan Burns of Nigeria responded to the Secretary of State's query 12 months after its receipt. He appreciated the seriousness of the position as far as Sierra Leone was concerned, but felt that 'the development was natural and inevitable, and provides opportunity of employment for the more adventurous spirits in Nigeria'. Wages varied from £3 to £5, plus £3 war risk bonus. (By this time the bonus paid to Europeans was £10 per month.) There could not possibly be any question of exploitation as ED workers were now organized into the Elder Dempster Workers Union. (Undoubtedly ED felt the best policy was for the company to set up its own 'unions' as the appointment of Labour Officers and local agitation had led to the growth of trade unionism in Nigeria in late 1941.3I) An insight into ED's new recruitment practices is gleaned from a visit by two Nigerians to Welfare Officer Keith at the CO. They were secondary schoolboys; Mr Dyson (mentioned by Sierra Leone governor - see below) had visited their homes and suggested that they might like to 'take a journey to England'. They were paid £6 and had not signed any papers.32 When informed of the two boys' story, Sir Alan Burns replied that he had heard that there had been an increase in desertions in the UK; these two should be charged and repatriated. 33 (One wonders what fate would have awaited these two lads had Mr Keith agreed to this suggestion; instead

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he arranged for the boys to be taken on at a Government Training Centre.) The Acting Governor of Sierra Leone had replied with alacrity. The colony stood to lose £50,000 in seamen's wages because of the new ED policy of recruiting in Nigeria. He had asked the company's representative for an explanation in July 1940, but the agent claimed that Head Office in Liverpool had not replied to his letter. However, a new ED official, a Mr Dyson had arrived in October to reorganize recruitment: skilled men from Sierra Leone, except for a few stokers, were no longer to be recruited; they would be replaced by 'Warri tribesmen' from Nigeria. These were 'raw' men with no seafaring skills; they were put on the coastal run for one or two voyages and then deemed ready for the long and war-endangered voyage to the UK; they were paid £3-£5 with a war risk bonus of £2, while the skilled men from Sierra Leone had been paid at the same rate as Africans domiciled in the UK. The Acting Chief Labour Officer explained ED's reasons for this change in policy: the company disliked paying the same war risk bonus to Africans and Europeans; it did not like the growth of trade unionism and objected to the Workmen's Compensation Order coming into force on 1 April 1941.M The Labour Officer was enthusiastic in his arguments to the Acting Governor and hence the British government: he emphasized that pay rates on 'African articles' were at the most 75 per cent of the European rates; during the war all shipping was controlled by the Ministry of Shipping 'which is in fact the employer of ships' crews'. In April 1940 a cost-of-living bonus of £1 had been agreed by the NMB, but ED refused to pay more than 12/6 (63 pence) and the NMB agreed.35 The CO's response to the charge that the British government, now de facto the employers, was discriminating against its 'coloured' subjects/ employees was nugatory. The Senior Welfare Officer expressed his concern over differential pay rates to the Ministry of Labour: he believed that all coloured men engaged in Britain should get the same wage as European seamen. In July 1942 Mr Keith had had a fruitless meeting with representatives of the Ministry of War Transport and the Shipping Federation: the one result appears to have been the meaningless agreement by the Federation to ask Pool officials to 'extend to coloured Colonial seamen at least the same consideration given to British seamen'. (The MNR Pool was administered jointly by the Federation and the NUS.) In January 1943 Keith met again with S. R. Walton of the Ministry of War Transport (MWT), the successor to the Ministry of Shipping, when desertion was discussed: there had been no marked increase. The MWT advised that the colonial governments should 'ensure suitable terms of employment on allied ships in consultation with the employers', but said nothing about employment on British ships. The Dutch, for example, were signing on

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crew in West Africa for £5 pm - still higher than most ED wages.36 So the ball remained in the CO's court. As far as I have been able to discover it was not until October 1944 that Mr Keith took the issue to a senior official within the Colonial Office. He wrote to Assistant Under-Secretary of State A.J. Dawe that those Colonial seamen domiciled in the UK who were employed from the Pool were now receiving the NMB-agreed wage of £14 10 0 plus £10 war risk bonus. However, West Africans were still being signed on on the Coast for between £3 and £8, plus £5 war risk bonus. They were signed on coasting articles which allowed for service in European waters! There was a 'good deal of discontent among Colonial seamen about conditions of employment on Elder Dempster boats and certainly from our experience the company deals with its employees in a somewhat high-handed manner'. ED had admitted that they moved recruitment to Lagos as Freetown men demanded higher wages and had joined a trade union to which the company objected. There is little doubt that Elder Dempster is hostile to the kind of independent organisation of labour with trade unions which would be likely to press for better conditions of employment and higher wages. They use unskilled men which leads to depressed conditions', Mr Keith concluded his memorandum. 37 Keith did not raise the question of pressing the Governors to 'ensure suitable terms of employment'. Was he not prepared to challenge his superiors' relationship with ED? Or did he consider the situation hopeless? I have not been able to find Mr Dawe's reply - if there was one. However, the minutes by officials in this CO file are very revealing. Major Orde Browne, who had earlier minuted that 'conditions of recruitment of crews in West Africa seemed to me to be unsatisfactory and I referred to this in my Sierra Leone report', now wrote that he had 'certainly gained the impression that ED were strongly opposed to any Trade Unionism'. Mr Jewell warned that the CO 'need to be careful with Elder Dempster . . . its great interests and activities have for many years assisted towards the prosperity of the West African colonies'. Mr Keith wrote (but did not include in his letter to Mr Dawe) that there should be 'really effective seamen's trade unions and proper legislation and protection'. 38 Conclusion It is clear that Elder Dempster operated a four-tier system of wage rates and that everybody concerned with the regulation of colonies, colonials, wage rates and workers agreed to this. When exactly the collusion had begun is unclear, though it is likely to have been as early as 1911 when African seamen first began to receive lower wages than their white

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peers.39 The exact wages paid at any time to Africans, especially those recruited in Nigeria from 1940 onwards, remains shrouded in obscurity. Whether the company received the full rate of the war-risk bonus and hence paid Africans very little from its own coffers also remains undetermined. It should perhaps be emphasized here that Elder Dempster was not the only company paying discriminatory wages to 'coloured' crew. Elder's parent company, the Blue Funnel Line, the company with the 'good reputation as employers of labour' according to the Ministry of Shipping (see above), paid its Chinese crew 'substantially less' than its white crew.40 Why was it that when Pastor Ekarte brought the issue into the open nothing was done, even though the question of disaffection in the colonies exercised the minds of both the Colonial Office and the Ministry of Information? This was probably because during the war it was easy to control information through the voluntary censorship operated under the aegis of the Ministry of Information, which also censored news sent abroad; sedition ordinances in the colonies ensured that no news reflecting badly on the UK was published, or announced publicly. (How else is one to understand the absence of news of the strike in the AfricanAmerican and African newspapers for whom George Padmore wrote?) Trade unions in the colonies, as Mr Keith admitted, had little power. As for Pastor Ekarte - he did not have enough friends in high places, or rather in higher places than Elder Dempster, to have to be taken seriously. Why did Colonial Office and the Ministry of Labour not correct the situation when their own welfare officers detailed the inequities and highlighted apparent illegalities such as seamen working without trade union representation? In the words of Labour's R.B. Paul, 'the Ministry of War Transport doesn't want to go against the wishes of the owners'; and, as welfare officers were on the lowest rung of the departmental hierarchies, senior officers could easily ignore their recommendations in view of 'higher' considerations.41

NOTES 1. Roderick Martin, Communism and the British Trade Unions 1924-1933: A Study of the National Minority Movement (Oxford, 1969); Arthur Marsh and Victoria Ryan, The Seamen (Oxford, 1989) ; Ben Pimlott, Labour and the Left (Cambridge, 1977). 2. Daniels Ekarte to Ronald Kidd, National Council of Civil Liberties, 11/2/1941, University of Hull: NCCL Papers, DCL92/1. 3. The statement by the Abosso African crew, dated 14 Aug. 1940, is in both PRO LAB 12/ 242 and PRO CO859/40/2. This strike appears to be a replay of a similar one by the crews of five ED ships in 1923, mentioned in Adkin to John Harris (nd), Rhodes House:

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Anti-Slavery Society Papers, Mss. Br. Emp. s.23. Box H1/3. 4. W. Armstrong, The Red Duster at War(London, 1942). 5. Minute byJ.L. Keith 19/2/1941, PRO C0859/76/13. 6. Up to the end of 1942 8,454 workers had been prosecuted and 744 jailed under the terms of the Essential Works Order. W. Padley, The Real Battle for Britain (ILP, London (?), 1943). 7. I was alerted to this strike by an undated, unsourced four-line cutting amongst Professor K. Little's papers ; to date I have not been able to locate the source. I asked Tony Lane if he knew anything about the strike; Tony graciously sent me his notes from the Journal of Commerce, 11 Sept. 1942 and the chapter 'Sons of Empire' from his The Merchant Seaman's War (Manchester, 1990). Africans were not the only 'coloured' seamen who attempted to obtain equal war bonus: in February 1941 80 Indian seamen struck because they were not being paid the £10 paid to Whites; 87 were arrested; after a few days' imprisonment they agreed to sail, presumably at their old war bonus rate. Liverpool Post, 1,3 and 4 Feb. 1941. 8. File 11004/34 in Welfare Correspondence Register PRO C0977/1. Papers relating to this strike have not been preserved; letter from Records Service, Dept. of Transport, 16 Oct. 1992. The Registry of Shipping in Cardiff has no information. NMB papers have not been preserved. Even the Liverpool Court records are missing. 9. New Leader (5 Sept. 1940), the Tribune (30 Aug. 1940) and the Glasgow Forward (31 Aug. 1940) West African Review (Sept. 1940, p.87). 10. 'Enquiry at Mersevside', report bv Arnold Watson dated 14/15 Aug. 1940, PRO LAB 12/242. 11. Report from Liverpool Central Police Office, June 1937, PRO H0213/353. 12. Unemployment Assistance Board, Report for year ended 31 Dec. 1939 for Liverpool District, PRO AST12/42. 13. Hansard( 12 March 1940, col. 1020); The Guardian (6 Aug. 1940). 14. Pastor Ekarte to George Hall, Undersecretary of State for the Colonies, 24 Aug. 1940, PROCO859/40/2. 15. How ED dealt with an earlier strike is outlined in the following: 'Elder Dempster have for a long time been giving £6 per month to coloured firemen while other companies have been giving £10 for the same work. Last week the various companies dropped to £9 & Elder Dempster dropped theirs to £5 10 0. £6 was not a living wage for men with families & the drop of 10/- was the last straw and the men refused to accept it & are now on strike & five ships have been sent off with white firemen at £9 or £9 10 0. When the firemen refused to accept the reduction the Company at once discharged all the men working ashore, so that though these men cannot be called strikers they are out of employment and it is reported that the Company has asked the Ministry of Labour and the Board of Guardians, not to grant them any relief. It is an attempt to starve them into submission and is unworthy of a great firm.' Revd Ernest Adkin to John Harris, nd (c. April 1923), Rhodes House: Anti-Slavery Society Papers, Mss. Br. Emp. s.23. Box H1/3. 16. C. Booth, NUS Liverpool District Secretary to W.R. Spence, NUS Secretary, 15 Aug. 1940, PRO CO859/40/2. One writer described the relationship of the NUS to employers as 'acquiescence, and the adoption of stern measures against men who kick over the traces. The trade union keeps the men in order and the employers in return agree to employ union men only.' Allen Hutt, The Post War History of the British Working Class Movement (London, 1937), p. 180. 17. Elder Dempster to the Colonial Office 20 Sept. 1940, PROCO859/40/2. 18. Sir Stafford Cripps was not a confirmed capitalist like his brother Leonard. Member of the Labour Party, he was Leader of the Flouse during the war. However, he was not immune from the racism endemic in Britain, as was demonstrated in his recommendations to the Cabinet regarding relationships with African-American soldiers in Britain during the war. See Graham Smith, When Jim Crow Met John Bull (London, 1987), pp.74-9. (I was alerted this comment about Cripps by Carlton Wilson.) 19. Minute byJ.J. Paskin 1 March 1941, PRO CO859/40/2.

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20. Draft letter to Ministry of Labour by J.L. Keith31 Oct. 1940, PROCO859/30/2. 21. Undated report of Conciliation Officer attached to letter from Guttery (Shipping) to Paskin (CO) 1 Oct. 1940, PRO CO859/40/2. 22. Guttery to Paskin 1 Oct. 1940, PRO CO859/40/2. 23. Correspondence in PRO CO859/40/2. An assiduous search through the records of the Ministries of Labour and Shipping has not turned up any further information. 24. Pastor Daniels Ekarte to the NCCL 11 Feb. 1941, NCCL Papers, DCL92/1. The journalist/writer George Padmore was the Marxist, ex-communist Trinidad-born head of the International African Service Bureau, an activist organization in London. 25. Pastor Ekarte's suggestions are in his letter to George Hall, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies 24 Aug. 1949, PRO CO859/40/2. Report by I. Cummings on his visit to Liverpool 6 Oct. 1941, PRO CO859/76/10. 26. Undated minute by O.G.R. Williams, PRO CO859/40/2. Williams was Assistant Secretary in the CO's West Africa Dept. 27. MOI to CO 19 Oct. 1940, PRO C0859/76/13; file 12850/10B in CO Social Services Register PRO C0965/4. 28. Professor Caradog Jones of the Association for the Welfare of Coloured People to Lord Moyne 11 Feb. 1941, PRO C0859/75/14. The Association was no true friend to coloured men: in this same letter Jones mentions that 'we have already alluded to the potential danger inherent in the importation of coloured labour into the UK'. The Association's Executive Council Report for April 1941, in the same CO file, reveals that the Association's finances had been rescued from insolvency by generous donations from ED and Alfred Holt & Co. ED was generous to another paternalist-racist organisation, the Anti-Slavery Society: the company donated £100 to the Society's appeal for funds for an African students' hostel. 29. At this time (January 1941 ) the war risk bonus paid varied from c. £1 10 0 being paid to Fijians, between £3 and £5 paid to Chinese seamen and £7 paid to Whites. Nobody in the government files I have looked through ever questioned why a Fijian life should be worth less than a White life. The NMB Year Books state that 'War Risk Money is paid while on Articles to all vessels to which NMB Rate and Pay Agreements apply . . . It does not apply to any person . . . whose actual pay is governed by an agreement apart from these (NMB) Articles.' The NMB agreed war risk bonus was £3 from 15 Sept. 1939; £5 from 31 May 1940; £10 from 1 Aug. 1942. 30. CO to Ministry of Shipping 4 April and the Ministry's reply 15 May 1941, PRO C0859/76/13. 31. Acting Governor Alan Burns to the CO 21 Feb. 1942, PRO C0876/45. A year previously Governor Bourdillon had not been in favour of the appointment of trade unionist labour officers as there were 'at present too few unions registered'. Mr Hibbert's minuted response to this communication was 'I did not expect Nigeria would want to have one of these trade unionists'. It sounds as if he agreed with the Governor's sentiments. Telegram from Bourdillon to the CO 12 Feb. 1941, and minute by Hibbert 18 Feb. 1941, PRO C0859/49/11. It has not been possible to ascertain Hibbert's status in the CO in 1941 ; by 1947 he was Assistant Secretary. 32. Minute by J.L. Keith 26 Jan. 1942, PRO C0859/76/14. For an amusing description of recruiting by ED, see Ernest Marke, In Troubled Waters (London, 1986), pp. 18—23. 33. Burns to CO 21 Feb. 1942, PRO C0876/45. 34. In 1938 on the initiative of the recently returned I.T.A. Wallace Johnson, the All Seamen's Union (ASU) was formed and enrolled 1,500 members; its immediate aim was recognition by the employers. By the end of 1939 the ASU was among the unions affiliated to Johnson's Sierra Leone Youth League. International African Opinion, Feb.-March 1939. See also H.E. Conway, 'Labour Protest Activity in Sierra Leone', Labour History, No. 15, Nov. 1968. In 1939 the Sierra Leone government also passed Trade Union, Workers Compensation and Arbitration Ordinances. See also J.L Roper, Labour Problems in West Africa (London, 1958); Peter Kilby, 'Trade Unionism in Nigeria 1938-1966', in A. Sturmthal and J.G. Scoville (eds.), The International Labour Movement in Transition (Illinois, 1973).

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35. Acting Governor of Sierra Leone to Lord Moyne, Secretary of State for the Colonies 24 May 1941, PRO C0859/76/14. 36. Correspondence in PRO C0876/45. 37. Keith to Dawe 12 Oct. 1942, PRO C0876/45. 38. Minutes by Orde Browne 14 April 1942, Jewell 12 March 1942 and Keith 13 April 1942, PRO C0876/45; minute by G. Orde Browne 28 Jan. 1942, PRO C0859/76/14. In his report on Labour Conditions in West Africa, Cmd.6277 1941, Orde Browne wrote: 'complaints were made to me that conditions on ocean-going ships were often bad, in the case of African members of the crew; both accommodation and food were said to be frequently very poor. Inquiries suggested that there were some grounds for complaint . . . There would appear to be the possibility of introducing legislation refusing to permit the shipping of crews on any vessels which did not allow previous inspection of the quarters and food provided from African seamen.' (p. 134). Orde Browne was Labour Advisor at the CO in 1942; it has not been possible to ascertain Jewell's status. I am not quite sure what to make of J.L. Keith. When he visited Liverpool he made no comment on what I see as a threat by ED. A local ED official told him that the company would like to empiloy the West Africans educated in trade schools in the colonies, but a 'disproportionate rise in seamen's wages might affect these plans adversely'. Mr Keith had even found ED's hostel for African seamen (that is, a segregated hostel) satisfactory, though both Mr Cummings and Mr Paul found it 'miserable and dark' a few months later. Minutes by Keith 3 Marsch 1941, PRO: CO859/40/2; Ivor Cummings 30 Oct. 1941, PRO CO859/76/10. 39. Ian G. Law, White Racism and Black Settlement in Liverpool (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Liverpool, 1985), p.87. 40. Malcolm Falkus, The Blue Funnel Legend (London, 1990), p. 114. Falkus states that 'Chinese quarters were of a lower standard than those of European crews, and they were paid substantially less (how much less is unknown). . . Even in 1961 the ordinary Chinese seaman was receiving take-home pay of £32 a month compared with his European counterpart who received £67.' 41. R.B. Paul to J.L. Keith 18 Dec. 1941, both in PRO CO859/76/10. A number of articles kindly sent to me by Marij van Helmond reveal him to have been a man of liberal views.

Notes on Contributors Diane Frost is Lecturer in Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of Central Lancashire. Her doctorate on Kru maritime migrant workers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, completed in 1992, was based on fieldwork in West Africa and the Toxteth area of Liverpool. Norma Myers lectures in history at Merchant Taylors' School, Crosby, Liverpool and has published in Immigrants & Minorities and Slavery and Abolition. Her Ph.D. thesis from Liverpool University will be published in the Library of Slavery series edited by Gad Heuman and James Walvin. Dick Lawless is Emeritus Reader in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Durham. His main research area is migration studies, particularly international migration for employment in the Middle East and, more recently, Muslim communities in Europe. His study of Arab seafarers on Tyneside in the early twentieth century will be published February 1995. Neil Evans is Tutor in History and Co-ordinator of the Centre for Welsh Studies at Coleg Harlech, Residential College of Adult Education, Harlech and Honorary Lecturer in the School of History and Welsh History at the University of Wales, Bangor. He has published widely on the history of Wales and the British Isles and is completing a book on Butetown, the multi-ethnic community of Cardiff. David Byrne is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Durham. His research interests are on the impact of deindustrialization on urban working-class people and he has published Beyond the Inner City (1989). Tony Lane, an ex-merchant seaman, is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Liverpool. He is author of Grey Dawn Breaking: British Merchant Seamen in the Late Twentieth Century (1986); and The Merchant Seamen s War (1990 and 1993). Marika Sherwood is a freelance historian whose articles on black people in Britain have appeared in English, Welsh and US journals. She has just published a book on the African Churches' Mission in Liverpool (Savannah Press, 1994) and is working on a book on Kwame Nkrumah's student years abroad. She is secretary of the Association for the Study of African, Caribbean and Asian History and Culture in Britain and editor of the Association's Newsletter.