Immigration lessons from the first world war
UK Guardian
Black labour was welcomed during the great war – but afterwards, black jobseekers were shunned, denied benefits, attacked and even driven out of the country
With the centenary upon us, military historians debate the first world war. Was it a necessary war, is the question that concerns them. But on hols, I gained an interesting perspective on where we have been and where we are now, while leafing through Staying Power, Peter Fryer's classic, scholarly history of black people in Britain, first published in 1984. Fryer, who first encountered diversity as a young reporter in 1948 when he was sent to meet the Empire Windrush, takes the diversity story back 500 years.
But the bit that jumped out at me was the migrant controversy in the aftermath of the great war. Black labour had been welcomed, especially at sea, but "when the armistice was signalled on 11 November 1918, the wartime boom for black labour fizzled out as quickly as it had begun". The cry instead was too many foreigners; British jobs for British workers. Black jobseekers were shunned and the complicit Ministry of Labour resolved not to tell them about benefits to which they were entitled. Destitute, they were targeted. By 1919, there were violent mob attacks in Liverpool, Cardiff and London. Everyone joined in, apparently. "The quiet, apparently inoffensive nigger becomes a demon when armed with revolver or razor," one paper said. Fryer attributes that to the Manchester Guardian.
What to do with these foreign troublemakers? Rid them from our small island, came the still popular reply, especially those with the gumption to organise others. And so a repatriation scheme was established by the Home Office. Some left with a £5 bounty. Some were promised compensation but got nothing, not even adequate food on the voyage. And this seemed a good outcome; irritants removed, the populist rage rewarded. But what goes around comes around. In a memorandum, Lord Milner, the colonial secretary, warned that many under attack had served in the war, done their bit and "bitterly resented the ingratitude".
He "feared the effect their return to the colonies would have on attitudes to white minorities there", says Fryer. "His fears were soon justified." Before long, the brightest and best of those repatriated were leading anti-colonial agitation in Trinidad, Jamaica, Belize and St Kitts, and the British government was warning the US of "Unrest among the negroes". Those campaigns would, in time, end Britain's colonial hegemony. Then as now; sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
