October 11, 2006

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10/10/06 - A Plano Reader Says Bush Has Transformed Texas

A Canadian Reader Wonders If The United States Needs An Immigration Head Tax?

From:  Dan Murray [e-mail him]

Re: Edwin S. Rubenstein’s Column: Foreign Labor Contractors…a.k.a. Gangmasters---The New Immigration Paradigm?

I am intrigued and shocked that Chinese contractors are involved in the U.S. cheap labor market.

Rubenstein’s article is of particular interest because it reminds me of my own research on Canada’s Chinese Immigration Act of 1885, also known as the Chinese Head Tax

Briefly, this legislation was a response to contractors--- mostly Chinese businessmen already in Canada—importing more cheap labor into Canada.

Additional immigration created hostility among Canadians against the Chinese. The uninformed and politically correct media points to racism as the root of this legislation and not to the economic consequences on Canadian workers of mass Chinese immigration. America is experiencing something similar with low cost labor from Mexico.

As I wrote on my website, the Head Tax (repealed in 1947) was directed against Chinese workers, not all Chinese. Its purpose—ultimately successful—was to end the arrival of new waves of Chinese laborers and to slowly terminate through attrition the unfair advantages these laborers had in the work place.

Keep up the great work at VDARE.COM. I have posted a number of Rubenstein’s articles on our website in the "American News Stories"