Retaining Chinese Indentured Labour in Interwar British and French Pacific colonies

Abstract

ABSTRACT British attempts to reform or close down the indentured labour system as it applied to Chinese labourers across the British empire were carried out on an ad hoc basis, one colony at a time. In the southwest Pacific islands indentured labour recruitment was retained into the 1930s and beyond. Between 1920 and 1953 thousands of Chinese workers suffered under penal clauses for labour offences and endured harsh conditions on contracts that often extended beyond five years. This article investigates the means by which colonial authorities in Hong Kong and the southwest Pacific were able to maintain the indentured labour system despite the British Colonial Office preference for abolition. It compares government correspondence, labour contracts and ordinances from Nauru under British-Australian mandate, Western Samoa under New Zealand mandate, and the Anglo-French Condominium of New Hebrides (Vanuatu). It demonstrates that Chinese indentured labourers were retained with only minor changes to their contracts, put in place for the most part so that colonial administrators could avoid national and international censure.