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Markey, Raymond. "Race and Organized Labor in Australia, 1850-1901." The Historian. Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. 1996. HighBeam Research. 19 Oct. 2017 <https://www.highbeam.com>.
Markey, Raymond. "Race and Organized Labor in Australia, 1850-1901." The Historian. 1996. HighBeam Research. (October 19, 2017). https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-18167215.html
Markey, Raymond. "Race and Organized Labor in Australia, 1850-1901." The Historian. Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. 1996. Retrieved October 19, 2017 from HighBeam Research: https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-18167215.html
The White Settler Societies of the Americas, Australasia, and Africa from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries all resulted from a particular form of European colonization that imparted a number of shared historical experiences, including racial antagonism. White settler societies depended on European immigrants, who subordinated non-European indigenous populations yet also allowed some immigration of nonwhites, free or slave. Strongly ingrained beliefs in white racial superiority dominated all of the white settler societies economically, politically, and culturally. Economically, these societies depended on primary commodity production and export to European markets. In part this was based on the greater availability of land than in the "Old World." Politically, white settler societies in the "New World" gained independence earlier than most other colonies. Culturally, white settler societies held non-Europeans to be inferior until well into the twentieth century.
Within European colonies, a subset may be distinguished in British colonization. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States developed similar political and judicial institutional frameworks, based on the dominant European population. From the late nineteenth century, most British colonies followed patterns of racial and economic development that differed from those of European settler societies. The British sub-group will here be designated Anglo-Celt settler societies.
The shared characteristics of Anglo-Celt settler societies profoundly influenced the operation of their labor markets, but there were also important dissimilarities in their labor market experiences. Although all of these societies faced indigenous populations, that of South Africa was far more numerous, so its labor force role was more important. In other settler societies the indigenous population existed largely outside the formal labor market. The United States, unlike the others, practiced slavery until 1865. Its immigrant labor force was also more mixed. Emigrants from the British Isles accounted for 95 percent of all immigration in Australia and New Zealand until well into the twentieth century; they accounted for the majority of immigrants to Canada in the nineteenth century; and they composed a smaller group than the Dutch who dominated South Africa.
Several important converging experiences remained in terms of these societies' labor markets. Because none were able to depend on the indigenous population for their labor market requirements, they relied on immigrant labor, free or slave. Wherever white and nonwhite labor jointly participated in the labor force, they rarely directly competed for the same jobs in the market. Whites usually occupied positions of higher status and skill, with which higher rewards were associated. Higher rewards might be attained on racial grounds alone if similar work was done, so these societies did not operate a completely classical dual labor market. Where non-British white immigrants entered on a large scale, they occupied lower status and took positions with lower rewards in the labor market. In the nineteenth century this occurred on a large scale in the United States, but other societies, such as Australia, had limited experience of this phenomenon.
By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, North America and Australasia had adopted racially restrictive immigration policies. In South Africa the equivalent policy was one of exclusion of indigenous blacks from certain occupations and areas. In some cases these settler societies also introduced racially based voting restrictions.(1)
The similarity of the political process involved was the result of shared social experiences and a shared racial and cultural heritage. For example, with the exception of South Africa, all of these settler countries experienced gold rushes between 1848 and 1871, which attracted Cantonese Chinese who generated considerable hostility among their hosts and provided much of the momentum for racially exclusive immigration policies. Because gold mining was the preserve of big capital in South Africa, it did not experience an influx of independent diggers. However, even in South Africa the importation of Chinese labor for the mines was a major issue from 1903 to 1907, and led to legal restriction of Chinese to particular jobs. The shared Anglo-Celt cultural heritage gave white settler societies a sense of racial superiority when faced with unfree and nonwhite labor. In Britain itself "the Chinese question was a major political issue" in the early 1900s.(2)
So pervasive was the assumption of Anglo-Celt superiority that in the settler societies that experienced immigration from southern and eastern Europe, the new European immigrants actually acquired the status of Asians at the end of the nineteenth century. Australian unionists' concern over indentured Italian workers in Queensland and the rumored colonization of Pacific islands by exiled Russian Jews had parallels in the United States and South Africa.(3)
A significant degree of cross-fertilization among the settler societies contributed to the similarity of responses to nonwhites. Australian and U.S. miners worked in each others' goldfields, Australian miners worked in New Zealand fields, and Americans in those in British Columbia. Quite apart from miners, many workers and entrepreneurial adventurers moved between a number, sometimes all, of these societies in seeking their fortunes. The popular and labor press in each country referred extensively to social experiences, including contact with nonwhite races, in the other settler societies. The same political literature was often influential in each of these societies. Furthermore, the settler countries looked to each other for precedents when drafting restrictive legislation. For example, Australian legislation provided a model for British Columbia and New Zealand, and Natal legislation for Australia. These societies might be seen as extensions of an international Anglo-Celt community. Although this was precisely the underlying notion of the British Empire, anti-imperialist sections of the Australian labor movement also expressed this in more blatant racial terms that could include the United States. Thus, "a feeling of loyalty to race rather than governments" underlaid the enthusiastic welcome afforded the United States Navy's "Great White Fleet" in Australia in 1908.(4)
Another shared aspect of race relations in the Anglo-Celt settler societies was the labor movement's role in generating racially exclusivist policies. The white working-class motivation for racially exclusivist policies was threefold. First, the notion of class exploitation through the use of nonwhite labor at substandard wages and conditions, which would undermine union standards and unionism itself, was a powerful threat perceived by workers. All of these settler countries experienced unfree labor systems - slavery in the United States, convict labor in Australia, and "coolie" or indentured labor in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and British Columbia. These systems could undermine white labor standards and status, because nonwhite workers were automatically associated with unfree labor systems. Whenever nonwhite labor worked for sub-union wages or conditions, was used as strike-breakers by capitalists, or was praised for its "docility" or propensity for hard work, this fear that union standards were being undermined was reinforced. …
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