Clyde opinion on an old controversy: Indian and Chinese seafarers in Glasgow

Indian and Chinese seafarers hold an important place in the history of the migration of people of Asian origin to Scotland. As transient labour with a disadvantaged politico‐legal status, these seafarers constituted a highly exploitable workforce and their appearance in Glasgow from the late 1850s bears testimony to the city's close links to the colonial system. Responses to the group shifted in the early‐twentieth century as missionizing impulses were supplanted by fears of economic competition. These fears were chiefly voiced in the racialized economistic policies of the white seamen's unions. As regards their broader legacy, the seafarers not only form a link into postwar migration and permanent settlement from the Indian subcontinent and South‐east Asia, but their experiences in Glasgow are also indicative of the negative ideological complex that confronted postwar migrants.