Estimated net immigration from the New Commonwealth,
1953-1962 Table 2
|
DATE
|
West Indies
|
India
|
Pakistan
|
Others
|
Total
|
|
1953
|
2000
|
|
|
|
2000
|
|
1954
|
11000
|
|
|
|
11000
|
|
1955
|
27500
|
5800
|
1850
|
7500
|
42650
|
|
1956
|
29800
|
5600
|
2050
|
9350
|
46800
|
|
1957
|
23000
|
6600
|
5200
|
7600
|
42400
|
|
1958
|
15000
|
6200
|
4700
|
3950
|
29850
|
|
1959
|
16400
|
2950
|
850
|
1400
|
21600
|
|
1960
|
49650
|
5900
|
2500
|
350
|
57700
|
|
1961
|
66300
|
23750
|
25100
|
21250
|
136400
|
|
1962
|
31800
|
19050
|
25080
|
18970
|
94900
|
Source: Layton-Henry, Z (1992, p13)
As we can read on table 2, the number of people coming from the
New
Commonwealth increases year after year with the highest record in
1961. the number
fell the next year in 1962, because of the Commonwealth Act. In
the 1970s another
wave of refugees came from Africa, Asia and South America because
of
decolonisation, wars and crises. 36000 Asians from Kenya, 24000
from Uganda
(Bloch, 2002, p35), 3000 Chileans, 19000 Vietnamese and 10000
Greek Cypriots
(Bloch 2002 , p36) came to England.
Besides the political reason for coming to England there is an
economical one.
B) ECONOMIC REASON
The economical ambition and power of England played a decisive
role in the
immigration policies. Indeed to compensate the shortage of labour
force necessary to
rebuild the infrastructures and the economy destroyed by years of
war, the
government set up the Foreign Labour Committee to encourage the
recruitment of
foreign labour from Europe workers as well as from its former
colonies. They all
came as refugees. In 1946, 1000 women from the Baltic States of
Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania and another 5000 were recruited to work in tuberculosis
sanatoria or as
residential domestic workers along with 74511 people from the
same region (Bloch,
2002, p29). The idea of recruiting refugees from Europe was
called European
Volunteer Worker (EVW). Their stay in the country depended on
their stay at their
work because they could be prosecuted or deported if they broke
their conditions of
recruitment (Bloch 2002 , p30).
Here is their number below:
Main refugee groups arriving in the UK, 1946-61
Table 3
|
DATE
|
GROUP
|
NUMBER
|
|
1947-1949
|
EVW from Eastern Europe
|
84000
|
|
1948
|
Czechs
|
2000
|
|
1956
|
Hungarians
|
22000
|
Source: Bloch, 2002, p33.
The purpose of accepting and granting refuge was not a
humanitarian act but was
rather based on filling vacant positions as Kay and Miles put
it:
Refugees were selected and landed in Britain largely according
to an explicit criterion of economic utility...What mattered
most
to the British government was the capacity of the refugees to
work,
and hence the emphasis on their fitness, health and strength
when
selecting those allowed to enter Britain and the concern that
deportation
should remain an option for those who might prove unwilling or
unable
to play the economic role that was expected of them (Kay and
Miles cited in
Bloch, 2002, p30).
It is clear refugees were accepted to bring a plus to the
economy. Along with the
refugees, Commonwealth citizens, due to colonial ties with the
United Kingdom,
were ipso facto British subjects and as such they were free to
enter the country once
their citizenship was established. The arrival of the
Commonwealth citizens to boost
the economy was even accepted by the Trade Union Congress which
did not see a
threat to native's job but rather shew sympathy: «Congress
is on the opinion that
these coloured workers are driven from their homeland by poverty
and insecurity
which are due mainly to unbalanced economies created by long
years of colonial
exploitation» (Hammar, 1985, p96).
The last reason explaining immigration in England is its
traditional reputation.
| 
