Welsh Journals

Expect more serious rioting which we cannot prevent. Military necessity.41 The Home Office replied the same day and indicated that the military had been instructed to leave Plymouth to assist the civil power.42 In spite of an armed presence in the Tredegar district until 21 July,43 the riots spread to other parts and a great deal of property belonging to the Irish inhabitants at Tredegar was gutted before the disturbances ceased." In accounting for this, we need to recognize that hostile images of the Irish were commonplace throughout most of society. They needed little stimulation to bring them into play and there were specific developments which aided this in 1882. The murders in Phoenix Park, Dublin, in May of that year provided one trigger, but a deeper force than a gut reaction to Irish nationalism was the pressure on employment in Tredegar as a result of changes in the iron industry. It was in such circumstances that long-standing economic, political and religious differences became highlighted and violence was directed against Irish immigrants to encourage them to leave the district and thereby reduce pressures in the job market.45 Shortly afterwards, in July 1911, violence was directed against the small Chinese community in Wales. In order to understand this we need to take into account the suspicion which existed in some quarters concerning the habits and behaviour of the Chinese and, among seamen, a long-standing antipathy towards Chinese hands based upon a perception of them as a source of cheap labour. 'You know, we know and they know', commented the Cardiff Maritime Review, 'that the Chinaman isn't worth a toss as a seaman; that his only claim to indulgence is that he is cheap.' Against this background, violence was triggered off by developments during the seamen's strike when all the foreign seamen, except the Chinese, supported strike action. The combined result of all these pressures was that five weeks after the strike had started violence erupted against the Chinese community, its businesses and its property which resulted in widespread destruction.48 This was soon followed by attacks upon the gypsies in Llanelli in "H.O. 144/100/A 18355/1. • Ibid. « H.O. 144/100/A 18355/32. H.0 144/100/A 18355/6. Report of the clerk to the justices at Tredegar to the Home Office, 11 July 1882. H.O. 144/100/A 18355/27. For other instances of Welsh-Irish conflict, see Lewis, op. cit., p. 238; R. Coupland, Welsh and Scottish Nationalism. A Study (London, 1954), p. 176, and Morgan, Wales in British Politics, pp. 68-69. 11 J. May, The Chinese in Britain, 1860-1914', in C. Holmes (ed.), Immigrants and Minorities in British Society (London, 1978), pp. 111-24, provides an interpretation of these incidents.