Tin Gods Toppling
By RICHARD WEST A .r Waterloo Station on Saturday afternoon, a policeman watched the hundreds of West Indians who had just come off the boat-train. `Well, that's the last of them,' he said with a pleased smile. But his taxi-driver friend replied: 'Too bloody late, mate. This country's been over- run already. I'm joining the white settlers' club myself.' This exchange sums up the popular atti- tude to the Immigration Act, which came into force on Sunday. Most people believe the Act was meant to discriminate against coloured people. Most misunderstand how the law will take effect; the policeman is likely to see many more trainloads of West Indians.
Much of the misunderstanding stems from one vague word in the Queen's Speech of October 31 last year: 'Legislation will be introduced to control the immigration to the United Kingdom of British subjects from other parts of the Com- monwealth, and to give powers for the expulsion of immigrants convicted of criminal offences.' The word 'control' has many shades of meaning, such as `check,' watch,"regulate' or, indeed, `prevent.' In practice it means that Common- wealth citizens arriving in Britain no longer, like United. Kingdom citizens, pass grandly by the immigration officers. Like aliens, they must explain the purpose of their visit and be pre- pared to answer questions on where, how and how long they intend to stay in this country. If they do not want to live and work here, they must be able to prove the fact. If they do want to work, they must show employment vouchers issued before departure by the Ministry of Labour.
According to the Act, work vouchers are issued to people with definite jobs to come to, or with qualifications and skills of particular value to Britain. There will also be an undefined quota of work vouchers for unskilled people wishing to come and look for work. First reports from Commonwealth countries suggest that almost all applicants have succeeded in getting vouchers.
Faced with the extra work of the Immigration Act, the Home Office has increased its staff of immigration officers from 400 to 479. These men —the ones who give you the gimlet glance as you lurch off the Channel steamer—will assume greatly increased responsibility under the new Act. They must watch for and stop known criminals from the Commonwealth. They must guard against forged work vouchers, even though, as a Home Office spokesman said, 'the kind of person we're operating against can't afford an expensive job like forgery.' They must distinguish the genuine tourist or student from the person hoping to take a full-time job.
Similar controls are already made on aliens coming to Britain: and many aliens complain as loudly of stern British questioning as they complain of being called aliens in British official language. But immigration officers this week have treated Commonwealth visitors with great leni- ency and the only people refused entry were quite clearly immigrant workers without vouchers.
Although the number of West Indian immi- grants since January 1 has declined 30 per cent. since the same period last year, the total inflow of immigrants from the Commonwealth has nearly doubled. Many of these were hoping to beat the Act; but with much unemployment of coloured people in London and the Midlands, there is unlikely to be a big demand for work vouchers. Most Commonwealth countries seem to believe that the Act will make little material difference to immigration. Indeed, most of the Commonwealth visitors whom I talked to on their arrival this week seemed quite undisturbed by the Act. For instance, a nattily-dressed Nigerian lawyer, Fred Ndiwe, said: 'My im- pression as a student here was that a law like this should have been introduced years ago. If I had had the power I'd have repatriated many people who were bad ambassadors for their countries. As a barrister I thought it a very well- conceived Bill.'
If the new Act has made little material change ir the rate of immigration, it has had a psycho- logical effect of the worst kind on the coloured community in this country. I chose, for the pur- poses of inquiry, a district of London where the coloured community is comparatively well inte- grated and therefore less prone to extremism and exaggeration. The northern part of Lewisham, with a small chunk of Deptford, is far removed in character from the vicelands of Notting Hill. Just beyond the end of the Old Kent Road and a little way short of Orpington, this is neither slum nor snoburb. The West Indian community is small (perhaps 4,000 out of 221,000 in ewisham); it has a high proportion of married people and a low proportion of criminals. There have been no Fascist demonstrations, no riots and few racial squabbles. Yet even here there is resentment, even hatred, against the nation which passed what West Indians call 'the Colour Bar Bill.' And resentment against the nation very easily becomes confused with bitterness against all British whites. A Jamaican dentist, Victor Page, is one of the leaders of this West Indian community in Lewisham. A man of great courtesy and intelli- gence, he expresses his feelings politely: 'We understand the British Government's problems, but this country is the only place we can go.
There are unemployed roaming the streets in Jamaica. Young people who haven't had the opportunity to study back home come to Eng- land, take a job and then study at a polytech- nic. Lots of them at medical school did it that way. I was a civil servant back in. Jamaica and came over here on leave. When I was over I decided to study as a dentist. I don't know whether I should be able to now.'
A West Indian shopkeeper, Vernon Laidlaw, voiced the views that I heard from many in Lewisham: 'We feel that the unemployment position here among coloured people has been done deliberately to get us to write back and say there's no jobs here. This colour bar Bill has been caused by the Common Market. They've got to leave space for Italians and so on. The Italians, they will be pouring over here.' Most of the West Indians 1 met here seemed to believe that the Common Market was a white conspiracy and directly responsible for the Im- migration Act.
At a West Indian social, later that evening, political arguments grew bitter and depressing. `The coloured man must learn to fight,' said Logan Thomson, an older man with a love of Biblical phrases. The coloured man has always been afraid to fight and die. I listen to Castro broadcasting. You can hear him here in England at 4.30 in the morning. And I listen to Nasser's programme "Voice of Africa." Did you know that the Jews have a colour bar in Jerusalem? A black Jew isn't allowed into certain places.'
These political views may sound naïve, but they are widespread. They are voiced by like- able, intelligent, generally pious men. Many British West Indians speak with admiration of Castro. Some told me they hoped Jamaica would leave the Commonwealth after it gains indepen- dence in August. Over and over again they said that Britain had rejected them. This goes with a great disillusionment about the British people.
A British Railways clerk, Stanley Brown, told me: The West Indian is taught to look on the white man as his master, as a tin. god. One of the good things about coming here is that he stops believing this. He sees that our way of life is better than the British. . . I've been in six- teen States of the United States and lived in two of them. And it's far worse here than over there. Over there nobody called me nigger.'
Even in Lewisham there is a widespread fear that the police may use the Act to deport people they do not like; 'One df the crimes they'll expel people for is carrying drugs,' I was told by a coloured welfare worker, 'and that's the easiest crime to frame a man for. You just slip some hemp into his pocket.' There were reports, which I could not substantiate and did notibelieve, that the police had threatened to 'get' people when the Act came into force. But it shows the at- mosphere of suspicion that such rumours should be spread and believed, even among immigrants who have steady jobs and families. The Act has undoubtedly shaken the black man's faith in white justice.
Previous page
