Summary

Foreword from the book:

A century ago race relations in Cairns were a by-word and a scandal among Australians of progressive views, as they sometimes are today. Then, however, it was the lack of racial prejudice - the disgraceful tolerance shown by whites towards the hordes of Chinese in their midst - which appalled visitors from the south and drew upon Cairns the execrations of the Bulletin. This is one of many unexpected discoveries made by Dr May in the research upon which this study is based.

The influx of Chinese into Australia in the late nineteenth century has been the subject of several able historical studies. These, like some other studies from around the Pacific rim, have tended to focus upon the hostility the Chinese aroused and the restrictions that were heaped upon them. The emphasis has been upon the Chinese as victims of white malice: the scope has usually been national or statewide, the viewpoint metropolitan. While taking full account of such works, Dr May essays a different approach: to give as full a picture as possible of one regional Chinese community during the half-century of its existence. Her emphasis is upon the actions of, rather than reactions to, the Chinese: their response to the problems and opportunities of a new land, the social and economic relations they developed among themselves and with other ethnic groups in the region, their aspirations, achievements and failures.

Every good regional study makes a contribution to knowledge of national and even of international history. What this one shows to be true of the Chinese in Cairns raises important questions about the Chinese in other regions of Australia, questions for which no clear answers are yet available. It also provides valuable indications of the sources in which those answers may be found. At the level of Australian national history it tends to confirm the conclusions of earlier scholars who saw active hostility to Chinese as essentially economic in character; it also demonstrates that interaction of Chinese and European economic interests could be very complex, and that ritual endorsement of racial prejudice was compatible with practical relations of comfortable tolerance and mutual profit. To the remarkable history of the overseas Chinese in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Dr May adds a new chapter. It has many parallels with those concerning California, Singapore or Fiji, but in some features it is significantly different.

Earlier studies in this series were all written as theses for the honours degree of BA. This one originated as a thesis for the PhD: consequently it is much larger in scale. In preparing the work for publication, the opportunity has been taken to incorporate reference to works published since the thesis was presented. There has been some rearrangement, and some revision, of the text; but in the main this is the thesis in its entirety.