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“British Subjects” and “British Stock”: Labour's Postwar Imperialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Kathleen Paul
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If Conservative Party leader Winston Churchill fought World War II determined not to be the prime minister who lost the Empire, Clement Attlee, Ernest Bevin, and Herbert Morrison, who as Labour members of the Coalition government served with him, were equally determined to hold on to Empire once peace was won. The Empire/Commonwealth offered both political and economic benefits to Labour. Politically, the Commonwealth provided substance for Britain's pretensions to a world power role equal in stature to the new superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union. For this claim to be effective, however, the Commonwealth needed to be demographically strong and firmly united under British leadership. Economically, imperial preferences and the sterling area offered a financial buffer against Britain's true plight of accumulated wartime debts and major infrastructural damage and neglect. Receiving over 40 percent of British exports and providing substantial, and in the case of Australia and New Zealand, dollar-free imports of meat, wheat, timber, and dairy produce, the Commonwealth seemed a logical body on which the United Kingdom could draw for financial support. In short, postwar policy makers believed preservation of the Empire/Commonwealth to be a necessary first step in domestic and foreign reconstruction.

Yet in 1945, a variety of circumstances combined to make the task of imperial preservation one of reconstitution rather than simple maintenance. First, it seemed that, just at the moment when Britain needed them most, some of the strongest and oldest members of the Commonwealth appeared to be moving away.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , April 1995 , pp. 233 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1995

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References

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5 CAB129/20 CP(47)242, August, 23, 1947, cited in Gupta, , “Imperialism and the Labour Government,” p. 107Google Scholar. Malaya, for example, exported rubber to the United States but was unable to benefit directly from the dollars earned.

6 One historian boldly refers to Labour's interest in colonial resources as “clutching at a variety of colonial economic straws,” while another has described Labour's reliance on the sterling area as “a quest for salvation.” See Kent, “Bevin's Imperialism and the Idea of Euro-Africa, 1945–49,” p. 55; Gupta, , “Imperialism and the Labour Government of 1945–51,”p. 107Google Scholar.

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10 This policy was based on the twin assumptions that, as a man was the head of his family, so must he define its nationality, and that a woman was incapable of loyalty to both her marriage bed and her passport. During the parliamentary debate on the 1948 Nationality Bill, one M.P. defended the existing system on the grounds that it was wrong “to assume that [husbands and wives] twain can be one flesh although they cannot possibly have one passport.” The same member thought “it a real misunderstanding of the essential nature either of marriage or of nationality to suppose that a woman married to a foreigner, could in every sense and completely, preserve her devotion to the British Crown” (Parliamentary Debates [Commons], 5th ser., vol. 453 [1948], col. 458). Illegitimate children, who took their British mother's nationality, were the exception to paternal transmission. See Klug, Francesca, “‘Oh to Be in England’: The British Case Study,” in Woman-Nation-State, ed. Yuval-Davis, Nira and Anthias, Floya (New York: St. Martin's, 1989), pp. 16–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 The 1942 Beveridge Report, for example, and the implementation that followed, built a welfare state on the presumption that women would largely be married and not participating in the paid labor force. See Beveridge, William, Social Insurance and Allied Services, Cmnd. 4606 (London: His Majesty's Stationer's Office, 1942)Google Scholar; Pateman, Carole, “The Patriarchal Welfare State,” in Democracy and the Welfare State, ed. Gutman, Amy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Lewis, Jane, ed., Women's Welfare: Women's Rights (London: Croom Helm, 1983)Google Scholar. Following the same assumptions, the Royal Commission on Population reluctantly acquiesced in the limited, controlled immigration of alien men as a partial, short-term solution to the labor shortage while viewing British women almost exclusively as actual or potential mothers. See “Report of the Royal Commission on Population,” Cmnd. 7695 (London: His Majesty's Stationer's Office, 1949), pars. 329–37, 401–6Google Scholar.

12 Soloway, Richard A., Demography and Degeneration: Eugenics and the Declining Birthrate in Twentieth Century Britain (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1990)Google Scholar. The depth of elite anxiety may be glimpsed by the popularity among the middle classes of such works as Charles's, EnidThe Twilight of Parenthood (London, 1934)Google Scholar; McCleary's, George F.The Menace of British Depopulation (London, 1937)Google Scholar; Heron's, DavidOn the Relation of Fertility in Man to Social Status and on the Changes in This Relation That Have Taken Place during the Last Fifty Years, Drapers Company Research Memoirs, vol. 1 (London, 1906)Google Scholar; and Elderton's, EthelReport on the English Birthrate: Part 1, England North of the Humber, Eugenics Laboratory Memoirs, vols. 19 and 20 (Cambridge, 1914)Google Scholar (all titles have been taken from Soloway). Similarly, newspapers ran head-lines bemoaning the “empty cradle,” while parliamentarians anxiously compared the British and German birth rates. Apparent official sanction for these fears of “racial decline” came with the government's establishment of an Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration and the taking of a fertility census to accompany the 1911 general census.

13 Raphael Samuel's edited three-volume collection of essays, Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity (London: Routledge, 1989)Google Scholar, provides a number of examples of groups and individuals whose formal equality was compromised by practical inequality; see particularly the essays by Douglass, Dave, “C Stream on Tyneside,” pp. 43–56Google Scholar; Summers, Anne, “Pride and Prejudice in the Crimean War,” pp. 57–78Google Scholar; Feldman, David, “Jews in London, 1880–1914,” pp. 207–29Google Scholar. Discrimination faced by subjects of color within an imperial context is detailed in Walvin, James, Black and White: The Negro in English Society, 1555–1945 (London: Penguin, 1973)Google Scholar; Fryer, Peter, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (London: Pluto, 1984)Google Scholar; Rich, Paul B., Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Tabili, Laura, “We Ask for British Justice”: Black Workers and the Construction of Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

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15 The concept of imagined communities is most fully explored in Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities, 2d ed. (London: Verso, 1991)Google Scholar.

16 The principle challenges came during the 1911 Imperial Conference on Nationality and again during the Imperial Conferences of 1930 and 1937. See Dummett and Nicol; and Parry.

17 See Tabili, Laura, “The Construction of Racial Difference in Twentieth-Century Britain: The Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order, 1925,” Journal of British Studies 33 (January 1994): 54–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a full explication of the workings of this order.

18 Canada had first proposed this idea at the 1930 Imperial Conference but was persuaded to accept the maintenance of the status quo by U.K. policy makers alarmed for the fate of the imperial nationality (HO213/360, “Second Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Inter-imperial Relations,” June 26, 1930, Public Record Office [PRO], London).

19 PREM8/851, Norman Brook to Attlee, November 1945, PRO.

20 CP(45)287, November 16, 1945, memorandum by the home secretary, “Canadian Citizenship Bill,” PRO.

21 The most recent work on nationality law, Dummett and Nicol's Subjects, Citizens, Aliens and Others, suggests that the act “bore all the marks of a plan devised piecemeal to deal with each technical problem as it came up, rather than one based on any clear, guiding theory” (p. 134). Similarly, Evans's Immigration Law concentrates exclusively on the technical changes brought about by the act, entirely missing the political implications and debates. Parry's Nationality and Citizenship Laws of the Commonwealth and Ireland suggests that the “Common Code” was already so fragmented that the 1948 act merely constituted one more change. (See n. 9 above for all three works.)

22 Currently the rather clumsy term “belonging to” had to be used to differentiate between those British subjects in whose name the treaty was being concluded (generally, those resident in the United Kingdom) and the larger class of British subjects resident elsewhere in the Empire. Married women's retention of British nationality was eventually enacted as part of the 1948 act.

23 CP(46)305, “Changes in British Nationality Law, Joint Memorandum by the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs,” July 29, 1946.

24 HO213/202, Cabinet memorandum, “Changes in British Nationality Law,” July 13, 1946.

25 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 453 (1948), cols. 393–98Google Scholar.

26 Parliamentary Debates (Lords), 5th ser., vol. 155 (1948), col. 762Google Scholar.

27 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 454 (1948), cols. 48–49Google Scholar; vol. 453 (1948), col. 495. In an earlier Cabinet memorandum, Ede stated his belief that free entry to the United Kingdom had contributed much to the “loyalty and solidarity of the Empire” (PREM8/851 CP(45)287, November 16, 1945).

28 Under the terms of the 1948 act, Irish aliens, though not British subjects, were to be treated as British subjects when resident in the United Kingdom or other parts of the Empire/Commonwealth. This provision stemmed from U.K. policy makers' desire to preserve both a useful labor supply and cordial relations with the Irish Free State. Its terms were repeated in the Republic of Ireland Act, 1949, following Ireland's departure from the Commonwealth and assumption of republican status. For a more detailed explication of the negotiations and the reasoning behind this, see Kathleen Paul, “A Case of Mistaken Identity: The Irish in Post-war Britain,” International Labor and Working-Class History (in press). While emphasizing the continuity of British subjecthood, the bill provided for the alternative title of “Commonwealth citizen” for those residents of the Empire who resented the implications of the term “subject.” Ironically, this clause, originally inserted in order to appease dominion and colonial nationalisms, became a means of discrimination against non-U.K. residents. Both the 1962 and 1968 immigration bills referred to the control of “Commonwealth citizen” rather than “British subject” immigration. By using the term “Commonwealth citizen,” the U.K. government suggested that the restrictions were being placed on members of the Commonwealth rather than on British subjects. Compare this change of heart to 1948 when “British subject” was all and “Commonwealth citizen” a quiet, barely mentioned, alternative.

29 HO213/202, Foreign Office memorandum, “Changes in British Nationality Law: The Question of United Kingdom and Colonial Citizenship,” July 5, 1946, PRO.

30 HO213/200, “3rd Meeting of the Interdepartmental Working Party on British Nationality,” May 17, 1946, PRO.

31 HO213/202, Foreign Office memorandum, “Changes in British Nationality Law: The Question of United Kingdom and Colonial Citizenship,” July 5, 1946, PRO.

32 HO213/202, Colonial Office memorandum, “British Nationality Proposals for Change in the Law,” July 5, 1946, PRO.

33 CAB130/13, Committee on British Nationality, “1st Meeting,” August 7, 1946, PRO.

34 HO213/202, Colonial Office memorandum, “British Nationality Proposals for Change in the Law,” July 5, 1946, PRO.

35 HO213/200, “3rd Meeting of the Interdepartmental Working Party on British Nationality,” May 17, 1946, PRO.

36 HO213/202, Cabinet paper, “Changes in British Nationality Law. Part III, The Question of United Kingdom and Colonial Citizenship,” July 13, 1946, PRO. The Working Party suggested that dominion residents might also be accorded this option in order to avoid the “unfortunate” appearance that a Jamaican was being privileged over an Australian. This advice was given despite the fact that the practical difference between a U.K. citizen and a British subject was nil.

37 HO213/200, “6th Meeting of the Interdepartmental Working Party on British Nationality,” July 15, 1946, PRO.

38 CO323/1869/11, Colonial Office minute, n.d., PRO. Titles that included a reference to Britain or Great Britain were thought particularly unsuitable for the offense they would give to the residents of Northern Ireland—part of the United Kingdom, but not part of Great Britain.

39 Dummett and Nicol (n. 9 above), p. 134, cite the technical nature of the so-called Experts' Conference as evidence of the perceived unimportance of the 1948 act.

40 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 453 (1948), cols. 401, 410, 1027–28Google Scholar.

41 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 453 (1948), col. 417Google Scholar.

42 Parliamentary Debates (Lords), 5th ser., vol. 155 (1948), col. 784Google Scholar.

43 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 453 (1948), cols. 394–98Google Scholar; (Lords) 5th ser., vol. 155 (1948), col. 757.

44 Gupta details the paternalism of Labour more fully in his Imperialism and the British Labour Movement, 1914–1965 (n. 1 above).

45 See Miles, Racism and Racism and Migrant Labour (both in n. 14 above).

46 Darwin (n. 1 above), p. 139.

47 Migration from the West Indies, India, and Pakistan was not caused by the 1948 act. Underemployment, exposure to other cultures through war service, and the dislocations caused by independence were the primary forces sponsoring postwar migration to Britain. What the act did do, however, was to make it difficult for policy makers to arrest the migration. Having publicly confirmed an expansive formal nationality policy, the political elite could not easily publicly admit to a much more narrowly constructed national identity. Thus, when faced with a perceived threat to that identity, in the form of independent migrating citizens and subjects of color, politicians of both major parties and officials from many departments cooperated in administrative efforts to protect the constructed identity without changing the formal policy. For a detailed account of this migration and successive governments' responses to it, see Paul, Kathleen, “The Politics of Citizenship: Concepts of Nationality in Post-war Britain” (Ph.D. diss., Boston College, 1992)Google Scholar.

48 Emigration figures are taken from Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 497 (1952), cols. 1563–64Google Scholar; DO35/4877, “Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Migration Expenditure,” PRO. The exact number of emigrants is hard to decipher given competing methods of accounting. The true number likely lies somewhere in between since U.K. Board of Trade figures do not encompass air travel while the dominions' higher figures may include British subjects emigrating from places other than the United Kingdom.

49 LAB13/277, “Emigration to New Zealand, Note of a Meeting,” May 15, 1947, PRO.

50 LAB13/204, “Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates,” May 25, 1950, PRO.

51 LAB13/199, A. J. S. James, note, “Proposal to Include Allied Nationals in the Free Passage Scheme,” October 24, 1945; October 29, 1945, PRO.

52 Application forms requested place of birth and religion, but there is no obvious evidence of discrimination against Irish Catholic or U.K. Jewish applicants.

53 LAB13/199, “Migration to Australia—Possible Size of Movement,” 1946; DO35/4877, “Draft Report of the Inter-departmental Committee on Migration Expenditure,” 1954, PRO. For more detailed studies of state-sponsored emigration, see Constantine, Stephen, ed., Emigrants and Empire: British Settlement in the Dominions between the Wars (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; MaIchow, Howard, Population Pressures: Emigration and Government in Late 19th Century Britain (Palo Alto, Calif.: Society for the Promotion of Science and Scholarship, 1979)Google Scholar; Erickson, C., Emigration from Europe, 1815–1914: Select Documents (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1976)Google Scholar; Glass, D. V. and Taylor, P. A. M., eds., Population and Emigration in Nineteenth Century Britain (Dublin: Irish University Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Johnston, H. J. M., British Emigration Policy, 1815–1830 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972)Google Scholar; Cowan, Helen, British Emigration to North America (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Richards, Eric, “How Did Poor People Emigrate from the British Isles to Australia in the Nineteenth Century?” Journal of British Studies 32 (July 1993): 250–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Economic Survey for 1947, Cmnd. 7046, pars. 60–61.

55 For a full account of the loan negotiations and the convertibility crisis, see Morgan, , Labour in Power, 1945–1951 (n. 1 above), pp. 144–50 and 341–46Google Scholar.

56 CAB134/301, Foreign Labour Committee, first meeting, March 14,1946; CAB134/301, memo by Foreign Labour Committee, May 14, 1946, PRO.

57 LAB 13/257, George Isaacs to Arthur Greenwood, lord privy seal, April 17, 1947, PRO.

58 Daily Graphic and Sketch (January 24, February 11, February 13, 1947). For a history of the fuel crisis, see Cooper, Susan, “Snoek Piquante,” in Sissons, and French, , eds. (n. 2 above), pp. 35–57Google Scholar; Robertson, Alex J., 1947: The Bleak Midwinter (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

59 Pimlott, Ben, ed., The Political Diary of Hugh Dalton, 1918–40, 1945–60 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1986)Google Scholar. See particularly the entries for July 31, August 8, and October 2, 1947.

60 “Displaced persons” was the term given to World War II refugees then housed in camps under UN supervision in Germany and Austria. For an analysis of the role played by the “displaced persons” with regard to the U.K. reconstruction effort and as another example of the complexities of British nationality, see Miles, R. and Kay, D., Refugees or Migrant Workers? European Volunteer Workers in Britain, 1946–1951 (London: Routledge, 1992)Google Scholar; Wyman, Mark, DP: Europe's Displaced Persons, 1945–51 (Philadelphia: Balch Institute Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Tannahill, J. A., European Volunteer Workers in Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958)Google Scholar; Paul, Kathleen, “The Politics of Citizenship in Post-war Britain,” Contemporary Record 6, no. 3 (Winter 1992): 452–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stadulis, Elizabeth, “The Resettlement of Displaced Persons in the United Kingdom,” Population Studies 3 (1949): 207–37Google Scholar. For a history of the Polish ex-servicemen, see Sword, Keith, The Creation of the Polish Community in Britain, 1939–50 (London: School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 1989)Google Scholar; Zubrzycki, J., Polish Immigrants in Britain: A Study of Adjustment (The Hague: Martin Nijhoff, 1956)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 For a history of these fears and the eugenics movement, which helped inspire the commission's appointment, see Soloway (n. 12 above). Britain's fears are placed in a European context in Teitelbaum, Michael S. and Winter, Jay M., The Fear of Population Decline (London: Academic Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

62 Royal Commission on Population (n. 11 above), pars. 158, 289, 321, quote on par. 297.

63 PREM4/421, prime minister's memo, October 20, 1942; Dominions Office memo, October 28, 1942, PRO.

64 PREM4/421, thirteenth prime ministers' meeting, May 12, 1944, PRO.

65 PREM4/421, paymaster general to the prime minister, April 26, 1944, PRO.

66 PREM4/421 WH(45)46, Cabinet meeting, April 16, 1945, PRO.

67 PREM8/1479 CM(45)40, October 11, 1945, PRO.

68 U.K. Board of Trade figures suggest that 221,016 U.K. residents left for Australia between 1946 and 1951, while Australian immigration figures reveal that 291,654 people of British nationality immigrated. The quote is from PREM4/421, prime ministers' meeting, May 12, 1944; See also DO35/4877, “Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Migration Expenditure,” 1954; LAB13/199, “Overseas Settlement in the Dominions: Revised Draft Australian Passage Agreement,” 1944; DO35/6379, “Annual Report of the Overseas Migration Board,” 1954; LAB13/434, “Overseas Settlement in Australia: Commonwealth Hostel Arrangements in Conjunction with the Free and Assisted Passages Schemes,” 1950–53, PRO. For a complete history of Australian postwar immigration from the Australian point of view, see Collins, Jock, Migrant Hands in a Distant Land: Post-war Immigration to Australia (Sydney: Pluto, 1988)Google Scholar. During the negotiations, the term “transportation” was deliberately avoided because of its “unfortunate” connotations—this source refers to this last sentence (LAB 13/199, Dennys to Wiseman, February 12, 1946, PRO).

69 Canadian “requirements” included good health, good character, and sufficient means for maintenance pending settlement (LAB 13/281, Ministry of Labour, “Note on Migration Policy,” February 1949; LAB13/281, “Problems of Emigration from the United Kingdom with Particular Reference to Movement to the Commonwealth,” June 1950; DO35/4877, “Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Migration Expenditure,” 1954; DO35/6361, “Canadian Government's Migration Policy,” PRO).

70 DO35/6379, “Annual Report of the Oversea Migration Board,” 1954; DO35/4877, “Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Migration Expenditure,” 1954; LAB13/204, “Meeting at Rhodesia House,” August 24, 1951; LAB13/199, “Overseas Settlement in Southern Rhodesia,” PRO.

71 DO35/4877, “Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Migration Expenditure,” 1954, PRO.

72 DO35/4877, “Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Migration Expenditure,” 1954; LAB13/836, U.K. high commissioner in New Zealand to the secretary of state for Commonwealth relations, July 30, 1954; LAB13/277, “Overseas Settlement in New Zealand,” PRO.

73 The Times (December 12, 1944; February 3, 1945).

74 DO35/4879, Committee on Migration Policy, final report, 1954; DO35/4881, report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Migration Policy, 1956; LAB 13/835, report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Migration Policy, 1950, PRO.

75 The returning migration estimate is based on figures in DO35/4879, Committee on Migration Policy, final report, PRO.

76 The Ministry of Labour, rather than the more obvious Commonwealth Relations Office, was initially chosen for the task because the cost of the ex-servicemen's free passages was to fall on the ministry's vote. Once in place, the ministry remained the competent authority since its employment exchanges provided daily access to likely constituents.

77 LAB13/281, “Assistance given by Ministry of Labour in Recruitment and Selection under the Australian Assisted Passages Scheme,” PRO.

78 The Times (December 2, 1946).

79 Quoted in DO35/4877, report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Migration Expenditure, 1954, PRO.

80 LAB13/199, Isaacs minute, March 1, 1946, PRO.

81 To soften the blow of the announcement, Ministry of Labour officials advised Dominion Secretary Addison to emphasize that the schemes would not come into operation until shipping was available, which was unlikely to be any date prior to January 1, 1947, and that the Ministry of Labour had reserved the right to refuse assistance to skilled civilian applicants (LAB13/199, Phillips to Dixon, March, 2, 1946, PRO).

82 LAB13/278, Bevan to Dixon, February 28, 1947, PRO.

83 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 443 (1947), col. 1082Google Scholar.

84 The Times (April 18, 1947).

85 LAB13/281, “Problems of Emigration from the United Kingdom with Particular Reference to Movement to the Commonwealth,” June 1950, PRO.

86 Royal Commission on Population (n. 11 above), par. 332.

87 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 476 (1950), cols. 97–99Google Scholar.

88 Daily Graphic and Sketch (April 18, 1947; June 19, 1948).

89 LAB13/388, Wesche to Keith, January 27, 1950; DO35/6379, “Annual Report ofthe Oversea Migration Board,” 1954, PRO.

90 These contradictory viewpoints are most clearly revealed in the correspondence and minutes in LAB13/199, relating to the period January–April 1947, PRO.

91 LAB13/278, “Overseas Settlement in Australia: Administration of Australian Schemes of Assisted Migration,” Salmon to Hornsby, November 12, 1948, PRO.

92 LAB13/281, “Problems of Emigration from the United Kingdom with Particular Reference to Movement to the Commonwealth,” annex, June 1950; The Times (April 1, 1947); LAB13/257, Isaacs to lord privy seal, April 17, 1947; LAB13/278: “Migration to Australia: Outline of Requirements of the States for 1947”; James to Bevan, March II, 1947; “Occupational Categories of Migrants Required by the States within the First 900 Berths Available to Each State for 1947”; and Salmon to Hornsby, November 12, 1948, PRO.

93 LAB13/281, Ministry of Labour, “Note on Migration Policy,” February 1949; LAB13/281, “Problems of Emigration from the United Kingdom with Particular Reference to Movement to the Commonwealth,” June 1950, PRO.

94 LAB13/278, W. Higgett minute, March 27, 1947; Glen to unknown (illegible writing), March 20, 1947; Levy minute, March 25, 1947, PRO.

95 LAB13/199, Reeder to Maher, July 17, 1947, PRO.

96 LAB13/838, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, memorandum on postwar migration from the United Kingdom, 1951, PRO.

97 PREM8/1479, Goskill-Barnes to Attlee, February 25, 1947; February 27, 1947, PRO.

98 The Times (August 18, 1947).

99 Attlee wrote “I agree” on Goskill-Barnes' memo but initiated no change of policy.

100 The benefits to be accrued from the receipt of “instant adults” and an explanation of the life-cycle effect of emigration in general appears in Mokyr, Joel, Why Ireland Starved: A Quantitative and Analytical History of the Irish Economy, 1800–1850, 2d ed. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985), pp. 230–60Google Scholar.

101 LAB 13/199, Draft Cabinet memorandum, “Shipping for Migrants to Australia,” January 18, 1947, PRO.

102 LAB13/199, Myrddin-Evans to Isaacs, January 2, 1947, PRO.

103 LAB13/199 Ince to Machtig, January 3, 1947, PRO.

104 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 433 (1947), cols. 750, 757, 761Google Scholar. See also Paul, “The Politics of Citizenship in Post-war Britain” (n. 60 above); and Miles and Kay (n. 60 above).

105 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th ser., vol. 499 (1952), col. 501Google Scholar.

106 Policy makers' comments, the advice of the Royal Commission, and the subsequent alien recruitment appear to refute recent assertions that the British government was sufficiently uninterested in Australia's postwar immigration requirements that it directed the Australians to seek their immigrants from among the DP population. See Wyman (n. 60 above), p. 191.

107 LAB13/835, Gordon-Walker to Isaacs, July 5, 1950, PRO.

108 LAB13/835, “Interdepartmental Committee on Future Migration Policy,” September 29, 1950, PRO.

109 PREM8/1479 CM(50)87, December 18, 1950; LAB13/835, memorandum by the minister of labour and national service, “Assisted Passages Agreement with Australia,” December 1950, PRO.

110 PREM8/1479 CP (51)178, memorandum by the secretary of state for Commonwealth relations, “Migration Policy: Assisted Passage Agreement with Australia,” June 26, 1951, PRO.

111 PREM8/1479 CP(51)218, memorandum by the secretary of state for Commonwealth relations, “Migration Policy: Assisted Passages Agreement with Australia,” July 23, 1951, PRO.

112 PREM8/1479 CP(51)225, memorandum by the minister of labour and national service, “Migration Policy: Assisted Passages Agreement with Australia,” July 24, 1951, PRO.

113 CAB 128/20 CM(51)55, Cabinet meeting, July 26, 1951, PRO.

114 LAB13/281, memorandum by Keith, February 1949, PRO.

115 LAB13/434, “Address by the Minister for Immigration to the Australian Citizenship Convention,” January 24, 1950, PRO. Aboriginal leaders would presumably have questioned Holt's definition of Australia as a British community.

116 Ibid.

117 LAB13/199, “Migration to Australia: Further Statement by Minister,” October 3, 1945, PRO.

118 LAB13/434: “Address by the Minister for Immigration to Australian Citizenship Convention,” January 24,1950; Keith to R. L. Dixon, February 13,1950; and LAB13/388, “Approximate Figures of Potential Migrants to the Dominions during 1949,” PRO.

119 LAB13/281, “Emigrants from the United Kingdom Traveling Direct by Sea to Places Out of Europe and Not within the Mediterranean Area,” January 1946–September 1948, PRO.

120 LAB13/836, U.K. high commissioner to secretary of state for Commonwealth relations, “New Zealand Immigration Policy,” July 30, 1954, PRO.

121 For one explanation of the link between the United Kingdom's commitment to a great power role and subsequent economic decline, see Brett, Teddy, Gilliat, Steve, and Pople, Andrew, “Planned Trade, Labour Party Policy and U.S. Intervention: The Successes and Failures of Post-war Reconstruction,” History Workshop 13 (Spring 1982): 130–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

122 For a detailed examination of the early stages of this migration, and the subsequent hostility on the part of the Labour government, see Paul, “The Politics of Citizenship in Post-war Britain” (n. 60 above). See also Carter, Bob and Joshi, Shirley, “The Role of Labour in the Creation of a Racist Britain,” Race and Class 25, no. 3 (1984): 53–70Google Scholar. For the subsequent Conservative response, see Carter, Bob, Harris, Clive, and Joshi, Shirley, “The 1951–55 Conservative Government and the Racialization of Black Immigration,” Immigrants and Minorities 6, no. 3 (November 1987): 335–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The 1962 act was formally color-blind, restricting entry to all non-U.K. residents. The public record reveals, however, that the act was passed as a consequence of, and directed against, colonial migrants of color. For a detailed account of the act's passage, see Paul, “The Politics of Citizenship: Concepts of Nationality in Post-war Britain” (n. 47 above).