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Xerox University Microfiims 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 73-23,922 INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1.The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Paga(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation. Silver prints of "photographs" may be ordered at additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced. 5. PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. Xerox University Microfiims 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 73-23,922 GRIFFIN, Nicholas John, 1943- THE USE OF CHINESE LABOUR BY THE BRITISH ARMY, 1915-1920; THE "RAW IMPORTATION," ITS SCOPE AND PROBLEMS. The University of Oklahoma, Ph.D., 1973 History, modern University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan © 1973 NICHOLAS JOHN GRIFFIN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE THE USE OF CHINESE LABOUR BY THE BRITISH ARMY, 1916-1920; THE "RAW IMPORTATION," ITS SCOPE AND PROBLEMS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY NICHOLAS JOHN GRIFFIN Norman, Oklahoma 1973 THE USE OF CHINESE LABOUR BY THE BRITISH ARMY, 1916-1920: THE "RAW IMPORTATION," ITS SCOPE AND PROBLEMS APPROVED BY 1^. DISSERTATION COMMITTEE TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ............................... 1 II, THE ORIGINS AND ORGANIZATION OF THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS: 1916-1917 .... 33 III. DISCUSSION OF THE DEPLOYMENT OF LABOR RESOURCES BY THE BRITISH ARMIES IN FRANCE AND THE IMPACT THEREON OF THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS ..................... 95 IV. THE RESPONSE OF ORGANIZED LABOR IN BRITAIN TO THE RAISING OF THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS .............................. 136 V. THE CHINESE AT WORK: 1917-1918 .... 163 VI. THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY EFFORT: ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS : 1918-1920 203 VII. THE DEMOBILIZATION AND REPATRIATION OF THE CHINESE LABOUR C O R P S ............... 236 VIII. C O N C L U S I O N .................................... 253 APPENDIXES 'A' Distribution of Chinese Labor Companies at Peak Strength, July 27, 1918 .......... 261 *B' List of Vessels Carrying Coolies to France, and Numbers of Men Reported on E a c h ........................................ 264 ’C* Schedule of Tasks Showing Superiority of Chinese Labor over W h i t e .................267 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................ 268 111 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION I Between March, 1917, and the beginning of 1920, the British Army, first in France, and then in occupied terri­ tory, employed an establishment of Chinese coolie labor which at one point totalled over ninety-two thousand men.l The so called "Chinese Labour Corps" was the result of a somewhat complicated series of understandings and maneu­ vers between the War Office, the Foreign and Colonial Offices, the High Command in France, and the Chinese gov­ ernment in Peking. This corps of laborers which so dramatically began to materialize behind the lines in the spring of 1917 has ^The exact total remains uncertain. The official statistics place the number at its peak at 92,129, while a reliable War Office source suggests a maximum figure in August, 1918, of 95,594 men and 956 officers. See: Sta­ tistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire dur­ ing the Great War, 1914-1920 (London: H.M.S.O., 1922), p"! l60, London. Public Record Office. War Office papers, category 107, file /or box7 no. 37, Report on the Work of Labour with the B.E.F. during the War, "Notes on Chinese Labour," August, 1918, para. 8. (Hereafter Public Record Office citations will adhere to the pattern of the follow­ ing shortened form: P.R.O./W.O. 107/37. This reference shall hereafter appear as Labour Report.) 2 had little to memorialize it during the course of the last fifty years. Public references to it at the time were few, often quite inaccurate, and occasionally de­ liberately biased for the purposes of Allied propaganda. The War Office wittingly discouraged contemporary comment for fear that organized labor in Great Britain itself would raise its voice in protest, not so much at the exploitation of Chinese workers in France, but against their possible use in dilution or substitution schemes then contemplated or in operation in England. The strategists in Whitehall also learned that their political superiors feared repercussions of a different nature involving, perhaps, embarrassing parallels with the importation into South Africa of nearly fifty-thou­ sand Chinese coolies in 1903 and 1904. These laborers, whose indenture was approved and facilitated by the Con­ servative and Unionist government of J. Arthur Balfour, worked in the Rand mines under conditions which even British officials who sanctioned the plan for their use admitted were inhumane. Criticisms of Balfour and his colleagues made on that occasion by the Liberal party had been a prominent but intangible element in their return to power in December, 1905.^ 2r . C. K. Ensor, England: 1870-1914 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1936), p. 377. Current interpretations tend to give the issue greater substance. One writer has 3 The Liberals kept alive for many years the memory of "Balfour's Blunder" and "Chinese Slavery," and regarded their crusade on behalf of the coolies as something of a confirmation of the principles which Mr. Gladstone had imparted to them before his death in 1898. When the use of Chinese workers in France was first contemplated in mid-1916, many of the leading actors in this earlier drama, men like Sir Edward Grey, H. H. Asquith, and Arthur Balfour himself, remained recognizably prominent in the political arena. They all played some part in the rais­ ing of the Chinese Labour Corps, and it lay in all of their interests to subdue the least hint of public out­ rage. Not surprisingly, the major newspapers remained strangely muted and uninformed, with the comments that did filter through to the public subject to close scrutiny at Whitehall and liable to bring prompt indications of dis­ pleasure.^ At the same time, the War Office was willing called the Chinese Labour question without doubt the se­ cond main plank in the Liberals' 1905 campaign, tariff reform being the first. See R. Hyam, Elgin and Churchill at the Colonial Office, 1905-1908 (London: Macmillan, 1968), p. 48. ^Through one of its military attachés, the British Legation in Peking protested vehemently to the War Office concerning an article hinting at the proposed use of Chi­ nese Labour which had appeared in the November 15, 1916, issue of The Manchester Guardian. See P.R.O./W.O. 106/33, History of the Chinese Labour Corps, Alston, Peking, to Director of Military Intelligence Td .M.I.), London, De­ cember 21, 1916. (Hereafter cited as C.L.C. History.) 4 to sanction a quasi-official coverage of the Chinese pre­ sence in France once the Chinese Labour Corps had become a fait accompli there. The leftist and labor oriented press, while failing to mind so urgently the government's quest for circum­ spection or outright abstention from comment, remained characteristically preoccupied with domestic and parochial matters, or with interpretations of socialist theory. The Parliamentary and Independent Labour Parties both express­ ed anxiety over the use of colored labor in general, but their concern extended only to the effects this might have upon the British Isles. This paper will seriously examine for the first time the decision making process which led to the use of the Chinese coolies. It will also attempt to fit them into the context of the social, political, and military ethos of the times. The Chinese Labour Corps will be seen as a part of the Imperial response to the demands of total war. The use of the Chinese under harsh conditions and terms will be presented as an event considered regrettable but nonetheless sanctioned and legitimated by the continued manifestation of Britain's Imperial destiny and the need to preserve the Empire from the hands of the enemy. When committed to employing Chinese workers in France under dubious conditions, Britain's political and 5 military spokesmen could clothe their actions with sur­ prisingly plausible defences. To understand why this was possible it is essential that some of the ingredients of the mentality which subsisted among the men who raised and directed the Chinese be clarified and understood.
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