Great Britain -- Emigration and immigration; Noncitizens -- Great Britain
In Victoria, the owner of the ship is compelled to give a bond of £100
to the immigration officer for every passenger he may bring, being
"either lunatic, idiotic, deaf, dumb, blind, or infirm, or likely in
his opinion to become a charge upon the public, or upon any public or
charitable institution." Penalties are enacted for refusing to execute
the bond, which, it should be noted, is applicable to the master of
any _British_ or foreign navigable vessel; the only exemption being
in favour of crews that are shipwrecked, or her Majesty's land and sea
forces.
By the Immigration Act of South Australia, passed in 1872, paupers
are practically forbidden to land. In Tasmania, the Passengers Act,
1885, enacts in the same way as Victoria, that a bond of £100 shall be
given to the collector at the port of arrival, by the master of any
ship (except one plying from one port in the colony to any other), who
attempts to land any passenger in Tasmania, being "either lunatic,
idiotic, deaf, dumb, blind, or infirm, or from any cause unable to
support himself, or likely to become a charge upon the public." As in
Victoria, the bond is applied to the maintenance of the said passenger,
and penalties are enforced in the case of the refusal to execute it.
Provisions are also made with regard to ships undergoing quarantine.
In New Zealand, the "Imbecile Passengers Act" of 1882 is practically
identical with that of Tasmania.
Such are the principal general Colonial Acts.
We now come to the vexed question of Chinese Immigration. It would
be well to mention in passing that a particularly drastic Act was
passed in British Columbia in 1884, which spoke of the "pestilential
habits" of the Chinese, and stated that they "habitually desecrate
graveyards by the removal of bodies therefrom." These expressions were
termed "peculiarly offensive" by the Chinese Ambassador in London; but
apparently his protest was of no avail, for in 1885 another and still
more drastic Act was passed, which effectually prohibited all further
Chinese immigration to British Columbia. It is, however, with Chinese
immigration into Australasia that we are more immediately concerned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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