Chinese merchant seamen faced unequal pay and postwar deportation

Chinese sailors had a long history in British merchant service, but they earned roughly a third of European rates before a wartime strike secured a two-pound monthly rise and access to a ten-pound monthly war-risk bonus. After the war, Liverpool authorities and shipping interests removed many Chinese seamen, including married and settled residents, from Britain. The removals were concentrated in Liverpool; other police forces appear to have been less willing to carry out the policy. It continued even after officials understood that families were being separated, partly because stopping it might embarrass the police, immigration office, and companies involved. Blue Funnel had depended heavily on lower-paid Chinese labor, tying the deportations to the postwar contraction of shipping employment as well as racism. Liverpool MP Bessie Braddock tried to challenge the removals, but many men disappeared from their British families without explanation. The policy was a grave betrayal of people who had served the war effort.