The New British

By COLIN MACINNES

N Rudyard Kipling's allegory Puck of Pook's 'Hill, Puck is the symbol of an eternal English spirit, and the children he tells his stories to epitomise the latest generation in our land. Puck's message to the young is that England's essential nature, throughout its history, is to be constantly invaded by new races which-the older settlers first resisted, and then accepted once the genius of each race became fused in a fresh form of the English soul. Puck's lesson is that hostility te, the invading race is natural, but equally so the wholehearted acceptance of its presence once it has lost its alien nature and is contributing to the mongrel glory of the English people.

In Puck's doctrine—that is to say, Kipling's- there are notable inconsistencies. It is in general the warlike invaders Puck is made to approve of —Romans. Danes and Normans—and he is given less to say of the peaceful invasions of Kipling's own times, such as the Irish or, more notably, the Jewish. Puck himself, one may believe, would be more realistic in this matter than his creator; for Kipling, despite his love of Empire, and especially its white Dominions. and his authentic delight in modern technological achievement, was a backward-looking prophet, as most prophets are.

Perhaps one may steal Puck from his inventor, and inquire of him what he may think of all that has happened, round and about Pook's Hill, in the last two decades of our era. For in the past twenty years a formidable invasion of our country has occurred, and one more varied in its nature than ever in our history. That we have not yet assimilated this incursion—let alone pondered on its consequences—can hardly , be doubted. 4nd in this our two chief illusions are to suppose this massive immigration is not permanent--that it consists of thousands of momentarily exotic birds of passage—also to fail to realise that, already in 1963. these immigrant populations have fathered in vast numbers entirely new kinds of native-born English sons and daughters.

Precise figures are hard to come by, but it is probable that the total immigration of the past twenty years approaches the million mark. The break-down may be somewhat as follows:

Commonwealth countries

Caribbean (including British Guiana and

Honduras)

300,000

Cypriot ..

100,000

Pakistani, Indian, Singhalese ..

40,000

Australian (including New Zealand) ..

40,000

African (West and East) ..

30,000

Maltese ..

20,000

Hong Kong Chinese

10,000

Canadian . •

5,000

Islanders (Bahamas, Bermuda. Mauritius, etc.)

2,000

547,000

Non-Commonwealth

Irish (of Eire) .. 200.000 Polish (ex-Army) .. 100.000 European (especially Italian) .. 40.000 South African .. 2,000

342,000 Total .• .. 889,000

A minority of these are, indeed, birds of passage —for instance African students, or Australians spending their wanderjahre among us—but how- ever short anyone's stay, this does not affect the possibility of their leaving behind offspring, legitimate or, as more usually, otherwise. And when one remembers that most of these immi- grant peoples have been here for ten years or more, and also that, in almost all categories, they are predominantly males, the probability is that we have already growing up among us, aged anything from zero to approaching twenty, at least a million children whose parents—or at any rate one of them—were not native born.

If one generalises about the reactions to these immigrations, one might say these have passed through three stages hitherto:

Self-congratulatory insouciance

The initial national feeling—up till say the early Fifties—was that we were splendid to welcome these miscellaneous aliens, since this proved our liberality and our freedom from such prejudices as are found in vulgar places like the US or African Souths. In this mood of irrespon- sible benevolence there was little realisation that the immigrants had come to stay, nor, in conse- quence, were any practical measures taken to render the social adjustment of both immigrants and natives more harmonious.

In Australia, at this identical time, a mass immigration of similar proportions was occur- ring. It is true this was government-sponsored and encouraged, yet the Australians took the strongest possible measures, both practical and psychological, to render the immigration acceptable to newcomers and natives. Housing and jobs were planned on a vast scale, and the Minister for Immigration publicised massively the concept that the new arrivals were to be welcomed: to be called not by any name that might occur to spite or condescension, but simply 'New Australians.'

In England, the immigrants were largely left to fend for themselves as best they could— which usually meant getting the worst possible jobs or none and, in respect of housing, being exploited viciouslyoften, it must be said, by crafty fellow-nationals already established here. To witness, in the early Fifties, the arrival of a boat-train at Waterloo from an immigrant ship, was a depressing spectacle. There was no welcome, no ,practical solicitude: there was not even a rejection; there was just a totally bleak indifference. Many immigrants, it is true. had relatives already here to look to, but the majority did not. It is small wonder that so many, educa- ted to respect their `mother country,' became and remain entirely disabused.

Panic and rejection The key events here were the riots at St. Ann's Well, Nottingham, and in Notting Vale (not 'Notting Hill' by the way: it all happened to the north-west, a quarter of a mile away or further). Now, as race riots go these days,

neither was very large: no one was killed in either place, though hundreds were injured, frightened or insulted. Nor were the whites who provoked the riots in any sense representative of the population as those who do so are in South Africa or the southern States of the US. They belonged to a rootless, self-destroying !um pen fringe, detesting because self-detesting.

But the disgrace about these events was this: an almost total indifference, among decent law- abiding London people—a moral contracting-out of any responsibility for this horror. I do not speak of those squalid creatures. (far more despicable, to my mind, than any bike-chain- swinging Ted) who drove into the area, from respectable adjaCent suburbs, simply to have a look. Far worse was the attitude one encoun- tered almost everywhere—and even among the most liberal and enlightened—of not wanting to know': if this thing was happening—which they didn't wish to believe—then it somehow oughtn't to be; and since it oughtn't, then it just wasn't.

Alas, bow often, in human affairs, does violence provoke reactions, and not foresight and intelligence! From Notting Vale onwards, it was realised at last we did have a social problem on our hands. But instead of trying actively to solve this—the possible solution being far more in our own adjustments than in those possible to the immigrants—we began to think in terms of 'solving' the perplexity by eliminating it at its sources: the means by which this was to be attempted being the Common- wealth Immigrants Act.

I do not think I speak unjustly of my country- men in saying that this Act had general support: and even more, that in the hearts of a majority there was an undeclared belief that Sir Oswald Mosley was quite right, and these people should not only be refused our shores but sent back in masses whence they came. Realism and decency prevented this latter folly being entertained; but fresh immigration was indeed refused.

Now, until the world loses its last frontiers (roll on fast that distant day!), there can be little objection to a regulated immigration. I suppose that, in the world, the Israelis are the only people who have—or could—absorb twice their initial population without total social disruption. But the English Act was one of mindless panic. There was no prior consultation with the Com- monwealth countries principally affected; there was no survey in depth (as in Australia) of what population the country could, economically and socially, absorb. And whatever bland excuses may be made, there can be no doubt the Act was aimed at excluding coloured peoples— especially from the Caribbean and Pakistan.

To get an entrance permit now, from a Commonwealth country, you must have a job assured. Some of the West Indian islands (as Barbados) have agencies for this purpose in liaison with potential English employers; but the only way most Caribbeans could ever find a job in England is by being here to look for it. Now who can doubt that an Australian, or Canadian, would find no difficulty, with the contacts in England available to him, in securing all necessary guarantees? And what about the non-Commonwealth Irish? Was there ever any pretence (or wish) that the Act should exclude them from our shores? When Sir Gerald Nabarro speaks, in a radio programme, in terms which reveal an alarined repugnance to the coloured male, one may find these, even if vulgar and unknightly, at any rate sincere. But with our government and most of ourselves, there was double-talk and think. Dr. Vcrwoerd is deplorable, so is Governor Faubus; the West Indians play. marvellous cricket and calypso, and make charming waiters at Port of Spain or Montego Bay; we don't mind a few on the London Transport, or on building sites, or washing up at Lyons'. But unrestricted immigra- tion (even if only, so far, 0.6 per cent of the population)—no Resigned resentment The third and present phase in our politico- psychological adjustment seems to be one of aggrieved acceptance of a disagreeable inevit- able. The Commonwealth Immigrants Act has stemmed the tide—we must accept its previous flotsam and jetsam as best we can. In this nega- tive attitude there seems to me much folly, blindness and ingratitude.

Before suggesting what more positive attitudes might be, I would ask the reader to return to the list of immigrants by category given earlier on so that we may try to examine wherein lies the problern for us and them.

Caribbeans The great change in the past five years has been the arrival of the West. Indian women, which means that the footloose solo male is less in evidence, and West Indian family life now thriving. Though still at the end of the queue at the Labour Exchange, employment in certain trades is now consolidated (transport, building, catering, nursing) and skilled work in factories becoming more general. Towards ourselves the general attitude is one of total, but now resigned, disillusionment. The minute criminal fringe is now better organised, the threat of deportation helping in this process Cif they catch me, then I get the free passage home, man').

Cypriot One of the most adjusted communities: continues to combine considerable cultural—and residential—cohesion with a fairly open attitude towards the natives. Mixed Anglo-Cypriot marriages are frequent, dual loyalty to England and Cyprus not a strain: when in England British, in Cyprus Cypriot (or Greek, or Turkish). Pakistani and Indian Very cohesive within themselves, not inte- grated, not wanting to be, and making no fuss about not being so. Expect little from us. and take what they can get. Bizarre fondness for the bleaker Midland cities. Immensely industrious, on the whole peaceable, passing almost unob- served.

Australian A large minority whose existence among us has passed almost unnoticed. Specially active in arts, show-biz, journalism, dentistry. surgery and commerce. The Anglo-Saxon Greeks: not one of them ever seen doing manual labour. even around Earls Court, which drear district they have now colonised. Only problem here is how soon they are going to take us over altogether.

Africans Mostly students, in business, or in voluntary exile. Believing, as they do to a man, that to be an African is the finest condition known to man- kind (and that anyone not realising this is an imbecile greatly to be pitied), and feeling an intense devotion to their vast and distant mother continent, there is no problem of adjustment since they have not the slightest wish to be adjusted.

Maltese Intensely clannish—almost to a Sicilian extent —with no love for this country or particular hatred of it: it is just a place to be and make a living in. Enterprising and resourceful, if not exactly hard-working. Relations with the natives almost exclusively sexual. Criminal fringe (petty) now part of the scene.

Hong Kong Chinese The most recent and hermetic of the immi- grant groups (some Chinese clubs are the only ones I know a native cannot infiltrate—much to this particular native's vexation). Chiefly in cater- ing—everyone will have noticed the extensive proliferation, in the past decades, of Chinese restaurants in areas where there were previously none. Since culturally self-sufficient, highlY industrious and profoundly—if courteously— contemptuous of all occidentals, no problem of integration really arises. (The recent distur- bance at St. Helens, Lanes, is, I think, the first Anglo-Chinese racial incident in a decade.) Canadians See 'Australians.' but on a much smaller scale, and with as yet no apparent intention of a take- over bid for the United Kingdom. Considered by the natives as a nicer, if less glamorous or dangerous, kind of American. 'English' Canucks active in radio and television, 'French' in the antique business.

Islanders Lost in our ocean, as they once were in their own, they suffer chiefly frpm being mistaken for citizens of adjacent non-island territories. Try calling a Bermudan a West'Indian, for example, or a Mauritian anything but what he is.

Irish Despite Eire's independence. the cultural- historical integration—largely through our fight' ing them or their fighting for us for centuries--

is so total that there can never any longer be a `problem' (except still over Partition). The Immigrants Act tacitly recognised this fact—its application to Irishmen (save in cases of depor- tation) being seen as an unenforceable dead letter from the start. Subconsciously, perhaps, and at any rate sensibly, the acceptance of the Irish presence in the UK is the start of a repayment for 400 years of horror inflicted by us on them. (They are also very useful on the M I and build- ing sites.) Poles Sensationally successful instance of integration at all levels. They are active and ubiquitous, but have simply disappeared. (How many of the natives have ever met one? Probably thousands, but without realising they are Poles.) Miscellaneous European No problem; always a near-by homeland to fall back on, anyway.

South Africans Adjustment for those of both races who have opted for British citizenship since the Union (what a name, incidentally, for this unhappy nation) left the Commonwealth, is often painful. We thoughtlessly suppose the choice for them must be easy: English liberality, South African Apartheid! But in their hearts South Africa remains their country.

If there is any truth in the foregoing, we can see at once that the problems of social harmony between the immigrant and native groups only really arise in the case of the coloured popula- tions. What it now amounts to is that we are faced for ever (since the process, having already resulted in a second native-born generation, is already irreversible) with the question—are we going to accept the idea of coloured Englishmen, or are we not?

This is, of course, a question easier to answer for some than others. To begin with, it is very much a matter of individual temperament. Man- kind, irrespective of age, class or race, seems to be divided into those who are attracted by, and curious about, the stranger, and those who are fearful or repelled; and if you are in the former category a welcoming attitude is effortless and automatic. Then much will depend upon your material situation. If, like this writer, you belong to a profession where racial integration is the norm, and immigration presents no conceivable economic threat to you, the 'problem' of adjust- ment will seem academic, not to say a bore. Ent suppose that, like the majority, you are neither of these things? Suppose you feel your .1°13, or house, or wife, or sleep in the small hours, is threatened by the coloured immigrants? Since these fears are usually irrational, any answers' to them may be irrelevant– though we can try to give them: They will take my job Coloured immigrants, being at the bottom of the labour market, are in fact chiefly employed to lobs white people don't want to do if they can avoid it (not that the coloured like this much either, but they have no choice). They are also uY nature mobile, as our own workers, despite necessity, do not wish to be. (Parenthesis: how is it that Continental European mobility is now the norm, that Englishmen once moved all over the globe in search of work—or plunder—but that today workers regard abandoning some hideous Midland town as the ultimate of disasters? The explanations are probably the earlier drive of poverty, the extreme shortage of housing, and a devotion to place which is both affectionate and thoroughly unenterprising.) The percentage of unemployed among coloured workers is higher than among the white (which leads some benevolent whites to conclude they -don't want to work anyway), and trade unions, whose record in race relations is, to say the least, extremely variable, will certainly protect white workers against any danger of dilution.

To take but one instance, English hospitals are now manned (or womaned) by a minority of English nurses—the majority being immigrant, including Eire Irish. Now, are these nurses taking Englishwomen's work away, or merely doing. work Englishwomen no longer want to?

They'll take my house To make West Indians, who are usually forced, because of segregation, to live at highest rents in slummiest buildings, the scapegoats for our own disgraceful neglect of housing, is to be both blind and cruel. And if, in the rare 'good' areas into which more prosperous Caribbeans can sometimes move, the presence of coloured tenants depresses the sales value of their neigh- bours' houses, one may sympathise with the individual neighbour, but not with the revolting snobbery that attributes the value of house property to the kind of person, irrespective of behaviour, who lives in it. Incidentally, if the word 'segregation,' applied to English housing in 1963, may shock anyone, let him make the simple experiment of answering an advertise- ment on the telephone (if he can manage the accent) and saying he comes from, for instance, the island of Montserrat.

They'll pinch my wife (more usually, daughter) This is what one might call the Nabarro obsession. Now there is no doubt that because coloured males are here in greater numbers than coloured females; or because of motives of

curiosity (considered natural enough when the white male is curious of the coloured female); or even sometimes because of sexual revenge— there will be cases when the black man is after your wife (or daughter). That your daughter (or wife) is frequently delighted that he is, and you are not, does not seem to have occurred to you. Nor that most coloured males—as males of every race—are apt, for dozens of reasons. to prefer their own kind (one of them being that he probably finds her more satisfactory).

How often, when in Africa, did I not hear identical lamentations! My dear son Afolabi has gone and married a white woman! Shame! Horror! What will my family say—and hers, for we had everything arranged for his espousals to Ajumorke, round the corner. (I really cannot wait to see confronted, say in Madan, Nigeria, Sir Gerald and any stalwart Yoruba matron—each convinced the other's child is trying to rape his own.) The white man's—and woman's—myth that every mortal of darker skin is panting to enter his or her bed is immensely arrogant, fails to correspond to reality, and probably arises from a profound sense of sexual insecurity and self-dissatisfaction. Left to themselves, in condi- tions socially and economically harmonious, the races will mingle marginally, never absolutely.

Their weird habits Up late at night, 'flashy' clothes, smelly cook- ing, hi-fi blaring, feeling food before buying it, loud voices and florid gesticulations . . . what can one really answer to this nonsense?

The basic objection is, of course, to black people being black. We, for centuries, have sent our white sons overseas never doubting the joy with which our pale countenances would be greeted (though David Livingstone, the first white man thousands of Africans ever saw, tells us how the children—and even warriors—fled from the sight of him in horror), nor our right tc. disrupt profoundly, and sometimes destroy for ever, ancient coloured cultures in a hundred lands. Now, as is always the pattern with imperialism in decline, those colonised return to colonise the ancient victor; and we, who skimmed the colonial cream for centuries, wish desperately to prevent this, and give nothing in return.

What counsel may sagacious Puck give to us in this predicament? Surely, at first, to recognise the courage and enterprise of these people. We Britons once thought nothing, of emigrating in a spirit of adventure. Today we demand jobs guaranteed and subsidised fares (with a return passage if we change our minds). Thousands of young Caribbeans have uprooted themselves from families and homes to seek work in a cold unwelcoming land. And though there have been rogues on each immigrant boat or plane, it is in fact the most solid and resourceful from the islands who have come here.

Puck, turning severe, may then go on to remind us, and most forcibly, that the question of whether we like these alien presences is now no longer really relevant. For, as has been said, they have already entered our blood-stream, giving us hundreds of thousands of English-born children who are growing up among our own, speaking the same accents, cheeking the same

teachers, and getting ready, as they grow older, to make or mar our land.

Once again, so far as these children go, the severest stress still fails on the immigrant people. In America, at the time of the mass migrations, parents who came by hardship from distant lands saw their children grow up to reject, even despise, their elders' backgrounds. This is now happening here too: what does a boy or girl born in Liverpool or Manchester know of the Africa or Caribbean his parents came from—or even care?

But to us, the natives, this new stock presents a marvellous opportunity. No one can doubt that England in so many ways is jaded, needing new vitality. Without our wishing it—let alone, God knows, planning it—Puck's voice has summoned from every continent of the globe new races whose chief common characteristic is a grim will to survive. They came here to use us but, in doing so, cannot fail to force us to use them if we are willing. What is most needed now, Puck may tell us (before disappearing till the next invasion a century or so hence—perhaps a less kindly one), is to seize the opportunity their presence offers; and to do this by showing if not • to them, at any rate to their children—who are now also ours—that whatever their origins of place and race. they are now Britons in every sense that we are.

The alternative is a continuing, nagging misery and pretence: the fatal weakness of not seeing what our country is. History is unkind to pretension that is not sustained by power (and perhaps even unkinder, in the long run, when it ir.). When and if the crunch comes, loyalties will follow not reason, but devotion. The million may be conscripted to our own sense of their duty, but where their heart is (or has been denied) there will be their treasure, or their venom, also.

All this said and believed, I must end on a sombre note. The more I think of racialism— whether Chinese-Tibetan, Russian-Hungarian, American-Red Indian, Hindu-Moslem, Israeli- Arab, Arab-Israeli, French-Algerian, Afrikaner- Bantu, or English-Caribbean--the more it seems to me this wicked folly is most dear to most of mankind. Of course one can see the factors that provoke it economic, as Marx taught us, who fiercely denied his Jewish origins; religious, as the Christian Church tells us whose finest hour was in its slaughtering crusades; liberal, as the sate well-heeled lovers of mankind say because they love mankind, not men who might disturb them even for a quarter of an hour. In race hatred, there seerth psychological security; in the lack of it, a freedom that terrifies most souls.

Well, the choice is to be terrified and be; or cling to safe hatreds, and destroy ourselves as n13 bomb ever will.

NEXT WEEK MR. BEVAN AND THE SPECTATOR'

RY

Jain Adamson