Infamous Chinese head tax got off to a slow start in British Columbia

Premier Christy Clark recently formally apologized to Chinese-Canadians on behalf of the B.C. government for the infamous $500 head tax and 100 laws, regulations and policies that discriminated against citizens and immigrants of Chinese descent since the province entered Confederation in 1871.

Clark called the racism of past B.C. governments “a stain on our history. We cannot undo the past, but by acknowledging it, by apologizing for it, together we can ensure that we and our children learn from these mistakes and never ever make them again.”

                                                    Chinese miner Ah Lock

A century and a half ago, the Saltspring Island member of the House of Assembly for the Crown Colony of Vancouver Island, moved a motion to impose a $10 tax upon Chinese immigrants. To this, The British Colonist took exception and, in its editorial for May 18, 1865, argued in favour of encouraging rather than discouraging Chinese immigration.

But not for altruistic reasons, as becomes readily apparent upon reading. I trust that it goes without saying that the sentiments expressed here are those of editor of the day not mine…

OUR CHINESE IMMIGRATION

The motion of Mr. Dennes to tax all Chinamen entering the Colony comes up for discussion to-day. However much the House of Assembly may feel in want of “ways and means,” we do not anticipate that many members will be found willing to support a capitation tax of $10 on any celestial immigrant. Independent of the unconstitutional proposition of singling out a race of people for taxation, there is something very impolitic in the step at the present time.

We are not so deluged with a European or an American immigration that we are obliged out of sheer self-defence to put a prohibitory tax on Asiatics.

On the contrary, our immigration is characterized more by that crab-like progression which is usually defined as “advancing backwards,” and there is no immediate prospect of a contrary current. Under such circumstances one would naturally imagine that an influx of any kind would be acceptable rather than otherwise–that an addition to our consumers, even if the increased demand were confined only to rice and opium–would be hailed with joy.

Half a loaf not better than a whole one?
Mr. Dennes is, however, not satisfied with this way of viewing matters, but stoutly maintains by his proposition that if we cannot get a European or American population we must have none at all–or, to reverse the homely proverb, we must have “no bread” in preference to “half a loaf.”

The motion of the member for Salt Spring is not likely to attract very seriously the attention of the House, and if the Chinese question came up in no more dangerous shape, we should feel that we were giving the matter rather an undue prominence; but there appears to be among a considerable portion of our population a feeling with regard to the Chinese that is unjust to the celestials as it is injurious to the country.

There are numbers in our midst who wish to see the Chinaman taxed in every conceivable way, because, forsooth, he can live cheaper than a white man, and is contented with less remuneration. Well, we confess we would like to see John wear a stove-pipe and eat and drink as other men; but since he won’t, there is an end to it, and we must put up with his clothing peculiarities and his gastronomic obstinacy.

We know he has an ineradicable antipathy to settling in the country, and that he very seldom as a miner invests what he takes out of the ground on top of it; we know also that he is a gregarious animal, living in flocks and herds, and that he dislikes going outside his own to transact the most ordinary business.

He is, in fact, the personification of that class to which is applied caelum non animum mutant.
He may cross the seas, and change his climate as often as steam and sailing vessels will enable him, but his mind is till the same, unchangeable and unadaptable to any country beyond his own.

All this makes the Chinaman one of the least desirable of colonial immigrants, and if we were receiving our thousands of civilized races every week, we could well spare the live freight from Hong Kong; but we are neither California nor Australia; and therefore cannot be so independent. We want population, and if we cannot obtain one class, we must content ourselves with another. The great policy is therefore not to diminish any portion of our consumers, however unfavourably they might compare with others, but to turn them to the greatest profitable account.

When the Chinaman arrives in the country and proceeds to the Island mines, let him be treated exactly as the white man; let him pay his license and other fees, and be protected in the same manner. It is the non-collection of licenses which has created so violent an antipathy against him in the neighbouring colony.

The mining bill at present before the House of Assembly makes, however, the taking out of a mining license compulsory on every person under a penalty of $50, and it only requires a little vigilance on the part of the Gold Commissioner to have every Chinamen at Sooke an acceptable contributor to the Crown Revenue. Any remission by which the Chinese are allowed to work without paying their share to the Government will, while injuring the Crown receipts, create a great deal of hostile feeling against them by the other miners. This should by all possible means by avoided.

At least the Chinese immigrant was law-abiding and he paid his bills
We have given what we conceive to be the principal objections against the celestials; but there is the other side of the picture. Of all classes of our population the Chinese are the most orderly and the most sober. They cost the country less in the police and judicial department. When they buy from the white population, they put the money down on the counter, and what is probably the best appreciated of all their characteristics by their lighter skinned brethren–they never “skedaddle.”

Summing up the advantages and disadvantages of a Chinese population at the present time, we should say that every 300 Chinamen are equal, in a business point of view, to about 100 whites–a proportion we certainly at the present cannot afford to despise.
* * * *

(In the same issue of the Colonist: “Poll Tax on Chinamen–Mr. Dennes’ motion for a poll-tax of $10 per head on all Chinamen arriving in the colony was defeated in the House yesterday, a majority of the members being of the opinion that in the present state of the colony at least Chinese immigration was a thing to be encouraged.”

Sad to say, the province, after Confederation,  imposed a head tax that escalated to $500 (the equivalent of $10,000 today) then an outright ban on Chinese immigration that wasn’t rescinded until 1947. They were the only people barred from Canada specifically by race. Nor were they allowed to vote or to hold a government job.

Hence the premier’s belated and overdue apology on behalf of all British Columbians.

Summarized an editorial in the Times-Colonist: “What’s the point of digging up the more unsavoury pieces of the past? To ensure such bigotry doesn’t happen again. To ensure it hasn’t left slimy tendrils that can take root today in different forms.

“We do not condemn the journalists and other citizens of early B.C. as evil people, but we condemn most heartily the sentiments they too easily embraced.”