shipping

British Shipping (Assistance) Act (1935)

Date:

01 Jan 1935

Precise date unknown:

About:

The British Shipping (Assistance) Act of 1935 aimed to subsidize the British shipping industry in the context of the economic depression of the 1930s. While one of its purposes was to safeguard seamen’s jobs, it did so only for white British seamen, thus discriminating on the grounds of race. One of the requirements for payment of the subsidy was that the ship employed only ‘British seamen’. Thus, in the wake of the Act, many ship-owners sacked all but their white employees, and numerous Indian lascars found themselves suddenly without employment.

This discriminatory Act was met with considerable resistance. The Colonial Seamen’s Association, which brought South Asian seamen together with their black, Arab and Chinese counterparts, was formed in reaction to the Act, in order to better mobilize against it. They held numerous meetings in which the Act was denounced. In May 1935, Shapurji Saklatvala gave a speech decrying the Act at the Coloured National Mutual Social Club in South Shields. Opposition to the Act was also voiced in India where there were even threats of retaliation against white workers there. With protest against the Act coming from the India Office and Colonial Office as well as the CSA and other organizations, the discrimination was removed in March 1936.

People involved:

Surat Alley (secretary of the Colonial Seamen’s Association), Aftab Ali, Chris Jones (Braithewaite) (led the Colonial Seamen’s Association), George Padmore, Shapurji Saklatvala (spoke out against Act), Rowland Sawyer.

Secondary works:

Tabili, Laura, ‘We Ask for British Justice’: Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1994)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

Archive source:

MT 9/2737, National Archives, Kew

L/E/9/955, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Tags for Making Britain:

Colonial Seamen's Association

About:

The Colonial Seamen's Association (CSA) was founded in 1935 to galvanize support against the 1935 British Assistance Act, which discriminated against non-British seamen. The organization's Secretary was Surat Alley. The CSA held its first annual convention in 1936 and remained active throught the latter half of the 1930s.

Secondary works:

Tabili, Laura, 'We ask for British Justice': Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Date began:

01 Jan 1935

Precise date began unknown:

Key Individuals' Details:

Surat Alley (Secretary)

Archive source:

L/PJ/12/373, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/12/630, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Tags for Making Britain:

Aftab Ali

About:

Although Aftab Ali never settled in Britain he was important in organizing lascars there. Furthermore his work in the late 1940s and early 1950s made it possible for thousands of migrant workers to settle in Britain.

Ali worked as a sailor in the 1920s gaining valuable first-hand experiences of the inadequate working conditions of lascars. This motivated him to work tirelessly for better working rights for South Asian seamen. In 1925 he became involved with the Calcutta-based Indian Seamen’s Union, soon becoming its General Secretary. In order to make South Asian seamen’s campaigns for better conditions more effective, he proposed to unite the various unions under the banner of the All-India Seamen’s Federation. He became its President in 1937.

He visited London in 1939 en route to the International Labour Organization’s conference in Geneva. Ali also participated in the Indian Workers’ Conference, organized by Surat Alley. Apart from London he also visited Dundee. While in London he was embroiled in the power struggle between Surat Alley and Krishna Menon. Suspicious of Alley’s Communist connections, he briefly supported Krishna Menon’s efforts in the East End of London and was considering Menon as the official representation of the All-India Seamen’s Federation. However, Menon quickly lost support among the lascar community and Ali switched his support back to Alley.

The work of Surat Alley and Aftab Ali was instrumental in breaking the deadlock between British ship-owners and striking lascars at the outbreak of war in 1939. Ali became Vice-President of the All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) in 1939 and was a member of the Bengal Legislative Assembly from 1937 to 1944. In 1941 he broke away from the AITUC. He was appointed Honorary Lieutenant Commander of the Royal Indian Naval Reserve in 1942.

After the partition of India, he moved to Pakistan and sat as an independent MP in the Legislative Assembly. He proposed that Pakistani seamen should leave their ships in British ports and settle there, adding to the small South Asian community already settled in Britain. In the early 1950s, he formed the Overseas Seamen’s Welfare Association to campaign for the granting of British passports to distressed seamen and their families.

Published works:

Address to Bengal Cabinet (Calcutta: Indian Seamen’s Union, 1937)

Date of birth:

01 Jan 1907

Connections:

Ayub Ali, Nesar Ali, Surat Alley, Maulana Bashana, Dr Basu, Ben Bradley Hamidul Hoque Chowdury, Manfur Khan, Abdul Manan, Ayub Ali Master, Krishna Menon, Suruth Mia, Tahsil Miya, Abdul Mannan, Abdul Majid Qureshi, M. N. Roy, Reginald Sorensen.

Indian Seamen’s Union (Calcutta), International Labour Organization.

Precise DOB unknown:

Secondary works:

Broeze, Frank, The Muscles of Empire: Indian Seamen and the Raj, 1919-1939 (Bucharest: International Commsion of Maritime History, 1980)

Tabili, Laura, 'We Ask for British Justice': Workers and Racial DIfference in Late Imperial Britain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Archive source:

L/PJ/12/630, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/E/9/773, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/E/9/976, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Involved in events:

British Shipping Assistance Act