Copyright by Timothy Steven Forest 2008 The Dissertation Committee for Timothy Steven Forest Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: KITH BUT NOT KIN: THE HIGHLAND SCOTS, IMPERIAL RESETTLEMENT, AND THE NEGOTIATING OF IDENTITY ON THE FRONTIERS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN THE INTERWAR YEARS Committee: Wm. Roger Louis, Supervisor Brian Levack Judith Coffin John Higley Mark Metzler KITH BUT NOT KIN: THE HIGHLAND SCOTS, IMPERIAL RESETTLEMENT, AND THE NEGOTIATING OF IDENTITY ON THE FRONTIERS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN THE INTERWAR YEARS by Timothy Steven Forest, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2008 KITH BUT NOT KIN: THE HIGHLAND SCOTS, IMPERIAL RESETTLEMENT, AND THE NEGOTIATING OF IDENTITY ON THE FRONTIERS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN THE INTERWAR YEARS Publication No._____________ Timothy Steven Forest, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2008 Supervisor: Wm. Roger Louis Based on archival work in England, Scotland, the United States, Canada and Australia, my dissertation expands the traditional purview of diplomatic history into the international dimensions of the social and cultural realms. My study treats doomed attempts to reconstruct previously-held notions of hierarchy and deference as encapsulated in the Empire Settlement Act (ESA) in the wake of the dramatic changes to the world order resulting from World War I. To counter the emergence of Japan as a world power, under the auspices of the ESA, British Columbia and Western Australia, the two most distant outposts of the “white” British Empire in the Pacific, imported poor Celtic farmers and militiamen from northern Scotland in an attempt to retain their iv “British” identity, which they felt was threatened by Japan on the one hand, the Japanese in their midst on another, and local “nationalisms” on a third. This dissertation argues that such schemes were undermined by the conflicting priorities of Britain and the Dominions, the tensions between laissez-faire and excessive centralized control, the disconnect between government, capital and labor, the valuations of self-help within highly circumscribed situations, the conflict between the themes of rejuvenation and permanent regression, the fight between an idiosyncratic rural ideal and the reality of the urbanized and industrialized world of the twentieth century, and the inconsistent application of supposedly inviolable Social Darwinist ideals. The birth and death of plans to recruit Hebridean crofters to British Columbia and Western Australia in the 1920s reveals a great deal about the fluidity surrounding concepts of identity and security in a very unstable time. The debates surrounding the status of the Hebridean Scots, especially vis-à-vis their British compatriots and the Japanese, are an extreme window through which the much wider dialogues taking place regarding the status of the British Empire both internally and on the global stage, on the changing role of race as the final determinant of one’s identity and status, and the clashes between the Victorian and the modern ways of defining and conceiving of Empire, can be viewed and debated. v Table of Contents List of Tables. ....................................................................................................... xii List of Illustrations ............................................................................................... xiii INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1 CHAPTER I: THE HIGHLAND SCOT, THE HEBRIDEANS, AND THE RISE OF SOCIAL DARWINISM AND BIO-IMERIALISM ....................................23 The Strengthening of the Highland-Lowland Divide, 1745-1845 ................24 The Highland Potato Famine and the Racialization of Difference in the Mid- Nineteenth Century .......................................................................................32 The Crofter’s War, the Napier Commission, and the Hebrides as a “Special Case,” 1882-1888 ..........................................................................................42 “Abandoning Them to Their Fate”: Lord Leverhulme’s Plans to Transform the Hebrides and Its Fallout, 1917-1923 .............................................................53 CHAPTER II: THE “WEST BEYOND THE WEST:” BRITISH COLUMBIA IN THE 19TH CENTURY ................................................................................74 The Oregon Country, 1818-1848 ..................................................................74 The Colony of Vancouver Island, 1849-1858...............................................76 The Gold Rush of 1858 and the First Wave of Asian Immigration………...78 “Racism vs. the Railway”: Chinese Immigration and the Canadian Pacific Railway, 1871-1885 .............................................................................81 The Arrival of the Railway, Attempts to Legislate Exclusion, and Tensions with Ottawa, 1884-1888 ...............................................................................85 vi CHAPTER III: A MOST “GIGANTIC SCHEME:” PRELIMINARY ATTEMPTS TO RECRUIT HEBRIDEAN SCOTS TO BRITISH COLUMBIA, 1887-1893 .......................................................................................................................95 Scots on the Canadian Prairies: The Saltcoats and Killarney Schemes as Models(?) for Begg .......................................................................................95 The Scheme Makes a Breakthrough: 1887-1892 ..........................................98 The Unfurling of the Scheme, 1892-1894 ..................................................106 CHAPTER IV: “EMPIRE ASCENDANT”: THE RISE OF JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE IN THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTUR .............................126 The Meiji Restoration and Its Impact on Emigration, 1868-1885 ..............126 The “Push” Factor: Emigration from Japan, 1885-1900 ............................130 The “Pull” Factor: North America turns to Japanese Immigration .............136 The Walls are Built: The Rise of Anti-Japanese Sentiment in British Columbia, 1895-1904 ...................................................................................................140 East vs. West vs. East: Tensions between Victoria, Ottawa, London and Tokyo on Exclusion................................................................................................143 Ottawa Makes a Concession: The Royal Commission of 1902 ..................147 CHAPTER V: THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR, THE VANCOUVER RIOTS OF 1907, AND ANGLO-JAPANESE RELATIONS TO 1914 .......................153 The Russo-Japanese War and Its Fallout, 1904-05 .....................................153 A Japan Triumphant: Immigration and Identity, 1905-1907 ......................156 The Vancouver Anti-Japanese Riots of 1907 .............................................159 The Royal Commission of 1908 and Its Recommendations .......................164 The “Gentleman’s Agreement of 1908” .....................................................169 The Calm Before the Storm: British Columbia, 1908-1914 .......................179 CHAPTER VI: EMPIRE PROBLEMS: THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH ............................................................................................182 World War I and British Columbia .............................................................182 vii World War I in the Outer Hebrides .............................................................188 World War I and the British Government ...................................................193 World War I and the British Empire ...........................................................196 World War I and Japan ...............................................................................201 World War I and Its Aftermath ...................................................................207 CHAPTER VII: EMPIRE SOLUTIONS: THE EMPIRE SETTLEMENT ACT AND IMPERIAL REJUVENATION, 1917-1922 ...............................................213 The Idea of Imperial Resettlement During World War I ............................213 Empire Settlement Gains Ground, 1918-1921 ............................................216 Empire Settlement and Canada, 1918-1922 ................................................224 Empire Settlement in Australia, 1918-1922................................................228 The Empire Settlement Act Takes Shape, 1920-1922 ................................231 The Empire Settlement Act and Its Intended Benefits ................................234 CHAPTER VIII: FROM BONNIE SHORES TO BARCALAY SOUND: THE RECRUITMENT OF HEBRIDEANS TO BRITISH COLUMBIA, 1924 ...... .....................................................................................................................244 Why the Hebrideans I: Their “Inherent” Skills and Advantages ................246 Why the Hebrideans II: Defenders Against Japan and the Japanese ..........249 The Hebridean Scots and Social Darwinist Hierarchies in the 1920s ........259 Pattullo’s Scheme Takes Shape, July – December 1924 ............................261 CHAPTER IX: HIERARCHIES OVERTURNED: THE FAILURE OF PATTULLO’S SCHEME, 1925 .................................................................266 Obstacle I: Problems with Location ............................................................268 Obstacle II: Problems with Housing ...........................................................271