Chinese labour and immigration

In 1884 the British Columbia legislature passed the Chinese Regulation Act, one of more than a hundred anti-Asian measures enacted by the province during the 19th century. This act imposed an annual tax of $10 on all Chinese over the age of 14. In essence it established a kind of pass law that licensed the Chinese to work in the province.

That year Conservative MP Noah Shakespeare tabled a motion in the House of Commons for a law to prohibit Chinese immigration. It was made necessary, he claimed, by their unfair economic competition and their immorality. His motion was amended and became law in 1885 as the Chinese Immigration Act, introducing the infamous $50 head tax on each Chinese arrival and limiting the number of immigrants per vessel. It did not provide outright exclusion, but it was the culmination of Shakespeare’s anti-Chinese activity. Later that year in Victoria he established the Labor Bureau, a union of white labourers to fight Chinese competition.