Appendix CASE ONE - Collection Point® | The Total Digital Asset ...

Chapter 13
The Burdens of Empire and the Legalization of White
Supremacy in Canada, 1860-1910*
John P.S. McLaren
'Whereas the incoming of Chinese to British Columbia largely exceeds that of any
other class of immigrant, and the population so introduced are fast becoming superior
in number to our own race; are not disposed to be governed by our laws; are dissimilar
in habits and occupation from our people; evade the payment of taxes justly due
to the Government; are governed by pestilential habits; are useless in instances of
emergency; habitually desecrate graveyards by the removal of bodies therefrom;
and generally the laws governing the whites are found to be inapplicable to Chinese
and such Chinese are inclined to habits subversive of the comfort and well being
with the community'. 1
In this preamble to the Chinese Regulation Act 1884 which the Chinese
ambassador to the Court of St. James, Lew Ta-Jen, characterized as 'a series
of charges such as was never before made in a public document against a people
of a friendly nation', 2 the government of British Columbia put on public record
its deep antipathy to Chinese immigration to and settlement in Canada's most
westerly province.
Although the sentiments might not have been expressed so openly and
blatantly, they were shared by the governments of other white colonies and
dominions in the British Empire, as well as by those of the western states of
the United States of America, especially California.
This essay examines the evolution of anti-oriental legislation in British
Columbia. In the process consideration is given to: (a) the legal models
developed elsewhere in the British Empire which were employed or appealed
to in furthering the policy of anti-Asian discrimination in Canada; (b) the extent
to which imperial and metropolitan interests limited or tempered the impulse
to institutionalize notions of white supremacy; and (c) the ideological and
cultural influences which inspired the legislation and conditioned the reaction
toil.
*My thanks are due to Hurt Harris for his help with the background research.
1
Act to Regulate the Chinese Population of British Columbia, Statutes of] B[ritish] C[olumbia] 1884,
c. 4, preamble.
2
C.O. 881/8, print 129, 1888, 1-3 (letter from the ambassador to the Earl of Rosebery, British
foreign secretary, enclosed with letter from Rosebery to Colonial Office, 5 August 1886).