Claude McKay

“ There is an exotic flavour in Dockland, and existence would not be intolerable there were it not for the hideous spectre of unemployment which haunts the wharves and which must be laid at the door of English Capitalism.
A few months ago the dockers got a rise in wages, and English ships soon vanished from English ports. In Liverpool, Hull, Bristol and Cardiff, conditions are just as bad. The British ships are being diverted to continental ports where labour is cheaper. This affects skilled labour of all trades. As well as the great mass of unskilled workers. ”

“ The kept Press, with an air of mock innocence, asks: “What fascination do our English girls find in these coloured foreigners?” The kept Press ought to know, when its position is the same as the girls', with the sole difference that its wages is higher and the prostitutes are men. The great food firm of Lyons', with its long chain of restaurants scattered all through London, is determined to drive hundreds of its striking girls to a worse life than that of Chinatown, because they tried to organise themselves into a Union. ”

“ They will not live and work up to the general standard of British seamen and if the standard of wages were ever so high, the ship-owners would use the Chinese as their tools and potential scabs against the white. Therefore only one course is open: Chinese must must not be employed on British ships, nor allowed to reside in English ports. As I have seen Chinese working and living just like other people in different parts of the world, I know that the premise is false. ”