In 1899, James Keir Hardie appeared before the UK House of Commons Select Committee on emigration and immigration.
He – as a leading socialist of Britain – gave his opinion on mass immigration into Scotland:
“James Keir Hardie, Secretary to the Ayrshire Miners’ Union and to the Scottish Parliamentary Labour Party (pp. 63–69) stated that 2,500 foreign workmen were employed in Glasgow, 300 in Leith and 20 at the Glengarock Ironworks in Ayrshire. There were between 2,800 and 3,000 foreigners in Scotland altogether. ….The more you look into it, the more you will discover that the pre-1960s Socialist and Old Labour left was often very hostile to the idea of open borders and mass immigration. Their views were often strongly at variance with the opinions of people who now pass for the “Left” in the Western world.
In many cases, they only stayed in Scotland a few months, to earn sufficient money to pay their passage to America. Their willingness to accept lower wages to achieve this end gave rise to sweated labour.
Complaints were made to Mr. Hardie by the workers at Glengarnock about the reduction in their wages which had been 17 shillings a week, but since the introduction of foreigners, had been reduced to 12 shillings. Speaking of the Poles at Glengarnock, he said ‘their habits are very filthy, six or seven males occupying a one-roomed house, and having women to cook for them’ (para. 1426). There was much ill-feeling between them and the Scottish workers.
He suggested that the employment of foreigners by British employers should be prohibited, unless they were political exiles or had fled from religious persecution, or if they came from countries where the wage rates were the same as in Britain. He said ‘Dr. Johnson said God made Scotland for Scotchmen, and I would keep it so’ (para. 1491). He thought, however, that any foreigners already in Britain should be allowed to stay.”
http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/haynin/haynin0906.htm
As we have seen here, here, and here, the heavily Marxist Socialist Party of America supported immigration restriction legislation and was even more vehement than Hardie in opposing open borders.
There is a whole history that could be written on the pre-1960s Left and to what extent and why it was hostile to mass immigration, but you can bet the unhinged lunatics and charlatans who pass for the modern “Left” will be completely uninterested in this.
Given the enthusiasm of the modern Left for the quasi-Maoist cultural destruction of the past of the Western world, they’d better start with taking down and destroying all statues, busts, photos, and memorials to James Keir Hardie, in view of his politically incorrect opinions.
Good post.
ReplyDeleteAnother revealing article, LK.
ReplyDeleteIt is a little known fact that Australia's first Prime Minister from the Australian Labor Party also led the world's first socialist, or social democratic government at the national level.
That government was led by Chris Watson, our third Prime Minister.
That government strongly supported the White Australia policy - indeed, Watson called for the policy to be strengthened in a speech to Parliament on 25 September 1901.
Seventy years later Arthur Calwell, another leader of the ALP, was defending the White Australia policy still. Calwell maintained friendships with Chinese people in Melbourne and learned to speak in Mandarin. He was not racist in the sense of holding any ideas about racial superiority, but clearly saw the threat posed to Australia by unrestricted immigration. Calwell was also a committed socialist, who suggested that Australia needed a revolution to provide better outcomes for working people.
Calwell and Watson were genuine socialists who placed a premium on the wellbeing of the whole organic nation. Their examples, like those of WG Spence and William Lane, should be guiding the Australian Left today.
Calwell's biography, 'Be Just and Fear Not' is excellent source material for Australian socialists.
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It's almost as if the left used to work for the poor and uneducated, rather than harrieing them and calling them names.
ReplyDeleteRemember when Trump said he loved the poorly educated? The howls of derision and incredulity from the left? They could not conceive such a thing.
Indeed, it is hard to believe that Trump loves the poorly educated, except as suckers. He said as much back in the 1990s.
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