Russian legislation of the early 20th century on the use of yellow labourin the economy of the Far East

At the beginning of the XX century wide circles of the Russian public became actively involved in the discussion of the question of the “yellow dominance” in the Far East. These territories quite recently became part of the Russian Empire, were poorly populated and experienced an acute shortage of workers. Under these conditions, the peasant and working colonization of the region was directed not only at mitigating the land crisis in the central and southern regions of Russia, but also at exploration of new territories. Fixing them for Russia comes to be one of the most important tasks of the government. The purpose of the article is to consider the development of legislative measures aimed at preventing the increase in the number of Chinese people and the growth of “yellow labour” in the Far East. A set of measures with the help of which this task was supposed to be solved is of special interest. Among them there are: registration and establishing strict sanitary and hygienic standards for foreign workers living in the Far East, levy charges on them, like those for hospital and patent, as well as taxes on clothing and food. Based on the documents from the funds of the Russian State Historical Archive and the Russian State Historical Archive of the Far East, the author shows that in the government circles there was a clear conviction about the need to limit “yellow labour” on the outskirts of the country. This position was held by all key figures in the Council of Ministers. However, the position of the trade and industrial circles of the Far East in this issue was not so unambiguous. In particular, the Exchange Committee in Vladivostok opposed restrictive government measures that did not allow full use of cheap Chinese labour in the region's economy. The law of June 21, 1910, however, introduced such restrictions for persons “who are members of foreign nationality”. One of the reasons for the part of the trade and industrial circles of the Far East tried to “correct” government policy, speaking out against the protection of Russian labour, was their desire to keep in their hands a number of industries in the region. Therefore, despite the clear position of the government on the use of yellow labour in the Far East of Russia, the regional administration had to use the opportunity fixed in the Law and to involve representatives of the yellow race in various types of work. After the outbreak of the First World War, the Russian government began to use the “yellow labour” more widely, facilitating the arrival of Chinese workers in Russia and organizing their transportation along the Chinese Eastern Railway to the central regions of Russia.

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