New Zealand Chinese Early History H 333

source - stevenyoung.co.nz

edmondsallan -Hello - There were many references over the years to this feature. In 1871 for example, the AJHR, H-5 included these statements, ‘The Chinese have a better idea of organization … They show a readiness to combine labour and are so much more amenable to discipline … more so than you could possibly get Europeans to be’ … ‘They work generally in small parties upon their own account and meet with fair success’ … ‘It is well known that the Chinese, by their more systematic and careful mode of operation, are frequently enabled to work profitably ground abandoned by European miners as worthless’ … ‘[The Chinese are] enabled to work auriferous ground profitably which otherwise could not be worked by Europeans for some time, owing to the absence in the latter of combination of effort.’

10. Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, vol.2, 1995, pp.19-21.

11. In 1871, the lowest wage recorded were those of Chinese who worked for Europeans. They got around £1 to £1 10s weekly, with living costs taking 8s-10s of that, according to gold wardens and G.B. Barton in the AJHR, 1871, H-5 and H-5A. The Tuapeka Times, 5 October 1871, confirmed that Chinese could be employed for 20-25 shillings a week. Thus their savings were around 50%, and if they did better than that in goldmining, they saved more.

12. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Edinburgh, 10th ed., 1902, vol.27, p.30; Outlook, 24 December 1904, p.16. For the price of silver (which was almost but not quite the value of silver currency) see: W.F. Spalding, Eastern Exchange Currency and Finance, Pitman and Sons, Bath, 4th ed., 1924. (Incidentally, for the Chinese dollar exchange rate, 1935-45, see A.N. Young, China’s Wartime Finance and Inflation, 1937-1945, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1965).

13. See Grey’s memorandum to parliament, AHJR, 1879, D-3.

14. It seems impossible to quantify £100 in 1896 in today’s money. But F. Snedden, King of the Castle, A Biography of William Larnach, D. Bateman, Auckland, 1997, p.254, researched Statistics New Zealand figures and found that £100 in 1914 was equivalent to about $10,000 in 1996. No earlier equivalent, she said, was obtainable. From another viewpoint, one can compare the average wage of the past to those in equivalent positions today. About the time the £100 polltax was introduced, the average wage of artisans and storekeepers was around £2 10s to £3 a week. General labourers got around 7s a day or about £100 a year. (New Zealand Official Year Book, Government Printer, Wellington, 1898, pp.293-96). Another reference point for comparison arose when Dr Robin Gee of Auckland wrote that a house at the turn of the 20th century could be bought for around £300 (personal communication, 13 June 1996); and TV1, Pioneer House, 25 March 2001, recorded that a new three bedroom wooden villa house sold for £200 in Grey Lynn, Auckland, c.1900. One should remember that the Chinese wage generally was less than that of Europeans.

15. T.D.H. Hall, ‘N.Z. and Asiatic Immigration’, in A.T. Ngata et al, New Zealand Affairs, L.M. Isitt, Christchurch, 1929, pp.87 and 93. Hall mentioned the Imperial War Conference agreement on immigration restriction, as also recorded in the New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, (NZPD), 1920, vol.187, p.905.

16. S. Brawley, ‘No White Policy in NZ, Fact and Fiction in New Zealand’s Asian Immigration Records, 1946-78’, N.Z. J. History, 27 (1), April 1993, pp.16-36.

17. Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, vol.3, 1999, pp.105-11.

18. For example, a miner named Chan Tsoi said, ‘Let China imitate Japan, then Europeans and Americans will not tax us.’ (A. Don, Diary, 1899-1907, manuscript, Kirkland private collection, Dunedin, item 684, 1906).

19. This statement remains a broad one since the number of Chinese newcomers entering New Zealand in the nineteenth century is unknown, because the official figures did not separate out the re-entrants. Between 1866-73, there were no official figures for Chinese arrivals and departures, but in September 1871, there were estimated to be 4215 Chinese in New Zealand. (AJHR, ‘Select Committee on Chinese Immigration’, 1871, H-5A, p.13; 4159 were in Otago). A ship arrived at Dunedin in October, with 205 more, making the total to be about 4,420 in that year. They could be taken as the starting point since this total probably included few re-entrants. Between 1874-81, there were 4852 arrivals and 3307 departures, and a net population of 5004 in the April 1881 census. Then between 1882-1900, there were 2116 arrivals of whom 1274 were newcomers who paid the polltax. Presumably the rest were re-entrants. 3345 Chinese departed. The census population in 1901 was 2857. So we have 4420 (1871), plus 1274 (1882-1900) plus, say, 2400 or about half of the arrivals between 1874-81, giving an estimated total number of 8094 Chinese immigrants arriving in New Zealand in the nineteenth century. Probably this total is still an underestimate because of the lack of complete figures. The number of Chinese deaths in New Zealand also involves guesswork. The two mass exhumations of the Poon Fah (Panyu and Hua counties) Association (completed in 1883 and 1902) totalled 704 bodies. This association and the small Naam Shun (Namhai and Shunde counties) Society were the only known Chinese benevolent societies in nineteenth century New Zealand. In proportion to the Panyu and Hua numbers, other Chinese deaths to 1902 may have taken the grand total to around 1000. But the Poon Fah Association was also active c.1892 and may have undertaken more exhumations then; in addition after 1902, there were probably a few hundred deaths of aged Chinese goldseekers who could not or would not leave for China.

Even so, when one considers the approximate total number of immigrants, the census populations of Chinese and the approximate number of deaths, the figures indicate that most of the goldseekers made their way back to China, whether successful or not in their overseas ambition, dead or alive.

20. There were 93 mixed marriages recorded in the 1886 census. The decrease to 43 in 1901 was probably accounted for by departure to China and Australia.

21. In the Outlook, 7 October 1905, p.8, Rev. Don was reported saying: ‘When the surface mining was exhausted, many took up other occupations – fruit and fish selling, laundering, [market gardening] and storekeeping, spreading over the colony until now in Wellington, Taranaki and Hawke’s Bay [which Don visited] hardly a town is without its Chinese tradesmen’. The New Zealand censuses, which eventually separated out the Chinese in detail, recorded their spread from the goldfields. At the turn of the 20th century, the centre of Chinese activity had passed from Dunedin to Wellington.

22.The parliamentary debate on the Chinese Immigrants Amendment Bill, 1907 (which introduced the reading test), prompted comments like this: ‘… during last year the largest number of Chinese women arrived [13 females] of any preceding year in the country’s history. The result of this is that we are having New Zealand-born Chinese children, who are unfortunately, brought up to live according to the habits of Chinese’. And, ‘There are in New Zealand at the present time fifty-five Chinese women. I think these figures alone will go to prove conclusively that is about time something is done to deal with this matter’. (NZPD, 1907, vol. 142, pp.839-40). Of the 55 females here in 1906, 32 had arrived from 1904. Forty of the total were wives. The writer’s impression is that many of the wives were from Zengcheng county, since they had early schools for females and men from this county were in most of the Chinese fruitshops cum groceries, which were among the most successful Chinese businesses.

23. The Harvest Field magazine of the Presbyterian Church gave the following information consequent on the increased price of silver: 9 July 1917: eight or nine Chinese dollars to one New Zealand pound; 8 July 1918: $6.40 to £1; 8 July 1919: under $6 to £1; 9 February 1920: last October the rate was $4.40, and last December, $3.87 to £1; 8 May 1920: $3.50 now equals £ 1; 14 December 1920: the rate is rising to $4.60 to £1.

24. The writer’s grandfather was said to be able to save half his earnings (presumably after expenses and tax) but his father and father-in-law were known to aim for one third, at least after World War 2. The 1936 census revealed that of 2223 Chinese males, 457 had no income, 1209 earned less than £104 per annum, 232 earned between £104-£156, 76 earned over £156 and 249 did not specify. By comparison, the average New Zealand income in that year was £160. The 1945 census showed much improved Chinese earnings.

25. The Chinese goldseekers acknowledged the general fairness of the courts (N.Z Presbyterian, 1 April 1885, p.184) and from what the writer heard in childhood, this was the general opinion held by his father’s generation also.

26. P. Law, Too Much ’Yellow’ in the Melting Pot? Perceptions of the New Zealand Chinese, 1930-1960. M.A. thesis, University of Otago, Dunedin, 1994, pp.17-18.

27. New Chinese businesses were opposed whether they were of the traditional or new types. See Tuapeka Times, 19 September 1894, 15 May 1895, 15 June 1895, 13 July 1895 and 16 September 1896. Also Quick March, 10 July 1920, pp.45 and 51, and 10 May 1921, p.53; and NZPD, 1922, vol. 194, p.513.

28. The Wellington branch (including Christchurch and Wanganui members) of the Kuomintang (KMT) was formed in 1913 and the Auckland branch (including Hamilton members) in 1917. They were preceded by the Chinese Reform Party in Wellington at the turn of the 20th century and by the Tung Meng Hui, also in Wellington from c.1910. Both Wellington and Auckland sent delegates to the Sydney conferences of the KMT organisations in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. The New Zealand Chinese Association (NZCA) was essentially a new organisation constituted in September 1937, following the failed United Overseas Chinese Association (1928) and the even earlier Chinese Association (1909). The NZCA absorbed other Chinese patriotic bodies which had sprung up throughout New Zealand except the KMT and county associations.

29. A prevalent belief of the Kiwi Chinese is that they raised either the top or second highest sum per capita of all the overseas Chinese communities; namely over £230,000 in levies and donations and some £250,000 in Chinese war bonds from 1937 to 1945. New Zealand war bonds were additional. As yet there is no confirmation for this belief, but C.P. Sedgwick, The Politics of Survival: A Social History of the Chinese in New Zealand; PhD thesis, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, 1982, pp.404 and 698, gives NCZA figures for 1937-44 amounting to £174,149 in levies and donations (which went on into the last week of 1945). As a result of the organisation and publicity required for collection, most Chinese got to know each other the length and breadth of New Zealand.

30. Every Chinese employer was levied 10 shillings weekly (on the assumed, average net earning of £5 weekly) and every employee 2 shillings in the pound (on the assumed average wage of £3 weekly). Even children’s wages were levied. These figures reflected the increased earnings of Chinese in New Zealand after the Great Depression and are interesting in comparison with the contemporary New Zealand basic wage of £3 16s weekly for male adults. However, increased earnings for many employers did not eventuate till around 1940 and so their levies were negotiable, especially since, say, the gardeners’ incomes might fluctuate with the seasons. Nevertheless, many in this predicament voluntarily gave the full levy or more.

31. Census report, 1936, vol.IX, Race, p.1

32. Personal communication with Chin Bing Foon, 18 June 1996. The Chin family was joined by the families of Yee Gnar Wah and Young Tong Shing in what seems to have been an incipient immigration scheme for prominent Chinese businessmen, before this was superseded by the Chinese refugee scheme.

33. N.R. Murphy, A Guide to Laws and Policies relating to the Chinese in New Zealand, NZCA, Wellington, 1997, p.251, notes that the Chinese refugee scheme was withdrawn in 1940, due to complaints from European fruiterers and other traders. However, the backlog of approved applications was presumably allowed to proceed. Other applications after 1940 were perhaps approved on an ad hoc basis. That may explain why the late application of the writer’s family was approved not on a refugee basis but because the writer’s grandfather had been naturalised in 1906.

34. The New Zealand-Chinese fundraising for China was not generally known (though approved by the New Zealand government) but what was publicly known - vegetable production (said, with no known survey, to amount to 80% of the fresh vegetables for the public), the promotion and buying of New Zealand war bonds, sharing the work at receptions for soldiers, etc - won much goodwill. Thus the NZPD, 1944, vol.266, pp.633 and 635 recorded: ‘The standing of the Chinese in the community was excellent; he had contributed to every patriotic effort that came his way… a good citizen’).

35. These are incomplete figures which do not include mixed-blood Chinese recruits, of whom it is known that Wing Commander Andrew F.H. Tye, DFC, and another airman Wm H. Lip Guey both died in action. Pilot Officer Willie Lee (actually Chan) learnt to fly in China, and died in a Spitfire accident in Gt Britain. Nurse Ivy Chiu (nee Gin of the Wah Lee merchant business) of Auckland served with distinction with Chinese and American forces in south China.

36. R. Thompson, Race Relations in New Zealand, a Review of the Literature, National Council of Churches, Christchurch, 1963, quotes J.R. McCreary, ‘The Modification of International Attitudes: A New Zealand Study’, Dept. of Psychology, Victoria University, Wellington, Publications in Psychology, No.2, 1952. McCreary recorded racial attitudes which in 1952 showed Chinese preferred ahead of other coloured minorities but behind the Anglo-Saxon peoples and also Maoris and Pacific Islanders, Germans, Jews, Russians and Italians. Thompson additionally found that G.M. Vaughan, Ethnic Awareness and Attitudes: a Developmental Study of Maori and Pakeha Children in New Zealand, Ph.D. thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 1962, reached similar findings. A. Trlin, ‘Social Distance and Assimilation Orientation: a Survey of Attitudes towards Immigrants in New Zealand’, in Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 12, no.2, September 1971, pp.141-162, still revealed similar findings (although in my opinion, the cumulative effect of my generation entering the general society, and the concept of multiculturism, were by then starting to cause a fairly rapid transformation of European attitudes towards the New Zealand-Chinese).

37. The Returned Services Association held the cachet of war service and was powerful, political, influential and pervasive in society. Not only was it anti-communist but it was also generally conservative and monocultural in outlook. Through ageing membership, its power declined slowly in the 1970s and more rapidly from the early 1980s.

38. On occasion, the suspicion was expressed overtly. For instance, during the Korean war a K Force soldier began a rumour that the Chinese in my hometown of Ashburton were communists or communist sympathisers, when he was told in our fruitshop on a Friday night that there were no bananas left for sale to him. The rumour swept through the town but enough Europeans supported the Chinese to reassure them to ride it out. The writer remembers how uncomfortable it was.

39. J.K. Hunn, Report on Department of Maori Affairs; with Statistical Supplement (24 August 1960), R.E. Owen, Government Printer, Wellington, 1961, pp.14-16. J.M. Booth and J.K. Hunn, Integration of Maori and Pakeha, No. 1 in a series of special studies, Department of Maori Affairs, Government Printer, Wellington, 1962.

40. J. Smith, International Perspective on Demographic and Economic Impacts of Immigration, in Proceedings of the Population Conference, New Zealand Immigration Service, Wellington, 12-14 November 1997. On pp.45-46 and pp.50-52, Smith reported that by the third generation, intermarriage almost reaches half in Asian and Hispanic ancestry communities in America, their fertility rates have converged to the national norm and economic differences ‘with the Mayflower generation’ have been erased.

41. Compiled from university graduation lists. After 1961, the number of overseas Chinese (Colombo Plan) graduates made compilation difficult. The writer graduated in December 1959 at the tail-end of the Chinese refugee graduates and knew most of the small group of Chinese university contemporaries throughout New Zealand.

42. E.S. Ho, The Challenge of Culture Change. The Cross-cultural Adaptation of Hong Kong Chinese Adolescent Immigrants in New Zealand. PhD thesis, University of Waikato, Hamilton,1995, p.24. She quotes C.Y. Chung, ‘In 1981, 24.3% of all New Zealand Chinese males and 16.2% of all Chinese females aged 15 years and over studied in tertiary institutions, compared with the New Zealand average of 7.1% for males and 6.1% for females’. New Zealand Now, Asian New Zealanders, Statistics New Zealand, Wellington, 1995, p.53, show similar percentages in fig. 8.4, for 1991.

43. M. Ip, ‘Chinese New Zealanders: Old Settlers and New Immigrants’, in S.W. Greif, (ed.), Immigration and National Identity in New Zealand: One People, Two Peoples, Many Peoples?, Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, 1995, p.186.

44. Census, 1986, ‘Birthplaces and Ethnic Origin’, Tables 10, 11, and 12. These tables reveal that the total number of full-blood and mixed-blood Chinese in New Zealand was 26,304, of whom the full-blood New Zealand-born persons totalled 8,352 and those born in China, 4,572. It would be fair to assume that in 1986, the great majority of the full-blood New Zealand-born and China-born Chinese persons (plus an unknown number of Hong Kong-born relatives) comprised what may be regarded as the traditional New Zealand-Chinese community. The Chinese-European mixed-blood population was 2,556, of whom about 85% were New Zealand-born. The Chinese-Maori population was 807, plus 1,263 of further admixture. Most of these mixed-blood groups could be safely regarded as part of, or derived from the traditional New Zealand-Chinese community. Thus in 1986, the New Zealand-born and China-born full-blood Chinese, the New Zealand-born Chinese-Europeans, the Chinese-Maoris, and those Chinese-Maoris of further admixture totalled 17,064.

45. N.Z. Herald, 12 April 1996, p.1-5. Mr McKinnon also said 40% of New Zealand’s exports go to, and a third of New Zealand’s imports come from, Asia.

46. N. Murphy, ibid, p.304, reports the number of Indo-Chinese refugees and the Chinese percentage.

Till we meet again -Regards -edmondsallan