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Small Businessmen on the Land

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Chinese Market Gardening in Australia and New Zealand

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Abstract

This chapter explores how Chinese market gardeners met the challenges posed by a complex and changing set of social and economic circumstances, including restrictive immigration policies, urbanisation, changes in land use and changes in retailing. It discusses the critical factors involved in running a small business on the land, including capital, labour and markets. Chinese market gardeners developed distinctive models of business organisation, labour relations and marketing strategies which were based on common ties of kinship and allegiance to village and district in China and traditional work practices and ways of doing business. The social and business networks within the Chinese community played a central role, providing sources of capital and labour; information on local business opportunities and regulations; and, avenues for distribution and marketing.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Royal Commission of Inquiry as to Food Supplies and Prices 1913, Sectional Report on the Supply of Fruit and Vegetables, Sydney, 1914, Sydney, 1914, p. 1.

  2. 2.

    Weston Bate, A History of Brighton, Melbourne, 1983, p. 166; and Randwick Municipal Council, Randwick: A Social History, Sydney, 1985, p. 159.

  3. 3.

    New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Royal Commission of Inquiry as to Food Supplies, pp. 69–70.

  4. 4.

    Shirley Fitzgerald, Red Tape Gold Scissors: The Story of Sydney’s Chinese, Sydney, 1996, pp. 97, 162.

  5. 5.

    Williams records that Billy Gay stated that he knew many gardeners who would ‘go back for 12 months whenever they had saved £100’ (interview with Billy Gay, 19 March 1998, Tape 2, A 115, quoted in Michael Williams, Chinese Settlement in New South Wales, Sydney, 1999, p. 44).

  6. 6.

    Ian Rannard, The Forgotten Gardens: The Story of the Last Market Gardens in Willoughby and Northbridge, NSW, Douglas Park, 2005, p. 78.

  7. 7.

    Author interviews with Gordon Ha, Sydney, 27 July 2011 and Wayn Chew, Sydney, 3 August 2011, recordings held by author.

  8. 8.

    Roger Waldinger, H. Aldrich, R. Ward and Associates, Ethnic Entrepreneurs: Immigrant Business in Industrial Societies, Newbury Park, CA, 1990, p. 36.

  9. 9.

    See Bruce Missingham, Jacqui Dibden and Chris Cocklin, ‘A multicultural countryside? Ethnic communities in rural Australia’, Rural Society, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2006, pp. 131–150; and Frances Parker, ‘The safe use of farm chemicals by market gardeners of non-English speaking background: developing an effective extension strategy for the Sydney basin’, Sydney, 2000.

  10. 10.

    His only assets were three pigs valued at £10, garden implements worth £15, and the vegetables in the ground, mostly cabbages, which were valued at £245 (Evening Post, 26 June 1906, p. 6).

  11. 11.

    Geoffrey Stedman, ‘The South Dunedin Flat: a study in urbanisation 1849–1965’, MA Thesis, University of Otago, Dunedin, 1966, p. 132.

  12. 12.

    New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Royal Commission of Inquiry as to Food Supplies, p. 2.

  13. 13.

    Niti Pawakapan, ‘The Chinese in Dunedin between the 1920s and the 1930s’, MA Thesis, University of Otago, Dunedin, 1987, p. 41.

  14. 14.

    Charles Sedgwick, ‘The politics of survival: a social history of the Chinese in New Zealand’, PhD Thesis, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, 1982, p. 473.

  15. 15.

    New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Royal Commission of Inquiry as to Food Supplies, pp. 69, 96.

  16. 16.

    Hans Dieter Bader and Janice Adamson, ‘Kong Foong Yuen, The Garden of Prosperity: final report on the archaeological excavations at Carlaw Park, Auckland’, Auckland, March 2010, pp. 31–44.

  17. 17.

    Ibid., pp. 163–164, 221–223.

  18. 18.

    From her analysis of the artefacts recovered in this predominantly working-class district, Karskens identifies a culture of comfort, domesticity and respectability which cuts across boundaries of class and social status (Grace Karskens, ‘Divergent Visions: The Archaeology of Working People’s Culture’, in The Cumberland/Gloucester Streets site, The Rocks: Archaeological Investigation Report, Redfern, 1999, pp. 159–184). See also Jane Lydon, Many Inventions: The Chinese in the Rocks 1890–1930, Clayton, Victoria, 1999, pp. 14, 180–191.

  19. 19.

    Bader and Adamson, ‘Kong Foong Yuen’, p. 35.

  20. 20.

    Ibid, p. 221.

  21. 21.

    Observer, Auckland, 31 March 1894, p. 6.

  22. 22.

    James Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 3, Dunedin, 1999, pp. 76, 303–304; and Lily Lee and Ruth Lam, Sons of the Soil: Chinese Market Gardeners in New Zealand, Pukekohe, 2012, pp. 207–208.

  23. 23.

    George Lee Kim’s grandfather Billy Lee King came to Australia in the 1870s as a gold miner and established a large market garden in Bendigo (George Lee Kim interviewed by Paul McGregor, 17 May 1994, Tape 1, National Library of Australia Post-War Chinese Australians Oral History Project, TRC 3522/4).

  24. 24.

    Lionel Nomchong interviewed by Matthew Higgins, 3 March 1995, National Library of Australia Post-War Chinese Australians Oral History Project, TRC 3196.

  25. 25.

    Similar patterns can be seen in the operation of Chinese stores. See Janis Wilton, Hong Yuen: A Country Store and its People, Armidale, 1989.

  26. 26.

    Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 1, p. 89; Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, pp. 64, 445; C. F. Yong, The New Gold Mountain, Richmond SA, 1977, p. 54; C. Y. Choi, Chinese Migration and Settlement in Australia, Sydney, 1975, pp. 11–13; Lydon, Many Inventions, p. 66; and Williams, Chinese Settlement, p. 11.

  27. 27.

    Williams, Chinese Settlement, p. 11.

  28. 28.

    Keir Reeves, ‘Tracking the dragon down under: Chinese cultural connections in gold rush Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand’, Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2005, pp. 49–66.

  29. 29.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 319. Of the 6,580 Chinese who entered New Zealand between 1874 and 1896, 64.38 percent came from Australia (Mohommad Taher, ‘Asians in New Zealand: a geographical review and interpretation’, PhD Thesis, University of Auckland, 1965, pp. 41–42).

  30. 30.

    Sydney Morning Herald, 2 March 1865, p. 2, from the Melbourne Age, 24 February 1865.

  31. 31.

    From the 1880s the Australian and New Zealand governments introduced labour legislation aimed at encouraging unionism and the settlement of industrial disputes by conciliation and arbitration (G. T. Bloomfield, New Zealand: A Handbook of Historical Statistics, Boston, 1984, p. 127; and Ken Buckley and Ted Wheelwright, No Paradise for Workers: Capitalism and the Common People in Australia 1788–1914, Melbourne, 1988, pp. 231–232).

  32. 32.

    New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Royal Commission of Inquiry as to Food Supplies, p. 69.

  33. 33.

    Bader and Adamson, ‘Kong Foong Yuen’, pp. 166, 221.

  34. 34.

    Andrew Piper, pers. comm., December 2011.

  35. 35.

    Zvonkica Stanin, ‘From Li Chun to Yong Kit: A Market Garden on the Loddon, 1851–1912’, Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol. 6, 2004, pp. 27–28.

  36. 36.

    Colleen Morris, ‘Chinese market gardens in Sydney’, Australian Garden History, Vol. 12, No. 5, March/April 2001, p. 7.

  37. 37.

    Lionel Nomchong interviewed by Matthew Higgins, 3 March 1995, National Library of Australia Post-War Chinese Australians Oral History Project, TRC 3196, transcript p. 16.

  38. 38.

    Lydon, Many Inventions, p. 173.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., p. 73.

  40. 40.

    By comparison the average wage in New South Wales in 1892 was £1.12s a week, without food and lodging. New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Report of the Royal Commission into Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality, Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, 1891–1892, Vol. 8, Sydney, 1892, p. 160. See also Yong, New Gold Mountain, p. 36.

  41. 41.

    Bader and Adamson, ‘Kong Foong Yuen’, p. 35; and Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 3, p. 235.

  42. 42.

    Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, pp. 207–209; and Lionel Nomchong interviewed by Matthew Higgins, 3 March 1995, National Library of Australia Post-War Chinese Australians Oral History Project, TRC 3196.

  43. 43.

    Evening Post, 21 May 1913, p. 3.

  44. 44.

    These systems were indicative of the rise of the welfare state and increasing government intervention in the labour market. Colin Forster,’Unemployment and minimum wages in Australia, 1900–1930’, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 45, Issue 2, 1985, pp. 383–388; Neal Ashkanasy et al., ‘The Anglo cluster: legacy of the British empire’, Journal of World Business, Vol. 37, Issue 1, Spring 2002, n.p.; and Robin Walker and Dave Roberts, Scarcity to Surfeit: A History of Food and Nutrition in New South Wales, Kensington, 1988, pp. 62–63.

  45. 45.

    Williams, Chinese Settlement, p. 38.

  46. 46.

    New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Report of Royal Commission into Alleged Chinese Gambling, p. 418.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., p. 1.

  48. 48.

    Choi, Chinese Migration and Settlement, p. 41; and John Connell and Angela Ip, ‘The Chinese in Sydney: from Chinatown to suburbia’, Asian Profile, Vol. 9, No. 4, August 1981, p. 293.

  49. 49.

    In New South Wales in 1921, for example, the Minister for Labour refused the request of European market gardeners to apply the eight-hour day system to Chinese market gardeners (Yong, New Gold Mountain, p. 37).

  50. 50.

    Choi, Chinese Migration and Settlement, p. 53, and Williams, Chinese Settlement, p. 44.

  51. 51.

    Mangere Historical Society, Mangere Chronicles, Mangere, 1990, p. 21; and John Brooks, ‘The last of the Chinese gardeners at Narrabri’, unpublished ms., 1998, Golden Threads Papers, Armidale.

  52. 52.

    Ah Yook and Carole Gass interviewed by Joe Eisenberg, August 1999, Golden Threads Papers, Armidale; Henry Reynolds, North of Capricorn, The Untold Story of Australia’s North, Crows Nest, NSW 2003, p. 76; and R. Wornall-Smith, ‘The employment of Maori women by Asiatic market gardeners: an aspect of NZ race relations’, University of Auckland Historical Society Annual, 1970, pp. 1–11.

  53. 53.

    Thong Ling Lee, ‘Chinese market gardening in the Auckland Region’, MA Thesis, University of Auckland, 1974, pp. 37, 38.

  54. 54.

    Gordon Ha interviewed by Joanna Boileau, Botany, 27 July 2011.

  55. 55.

    Martin Shanahan and John Wilson, ‘Measuring inequality trends in colonial Australia using factor-price ratios: the importance of boundaries’, Australian Economic History Review, Vol. 47, No. 1, 2007, p. 7. See also J. M. Powell, Mirrors of the New World, Folkestone/Hamden Connecticut, 1977, pp. 35–36, 71.

  56. 56.

    Powell, Mirrors of the New World, pp. 71–75.

  57. 57.

    Geoffrey Bolton, ‘Money: trade, investment and economic nationalism’, in Deryk Schreuder and Stuart Ward (eds.), Australia’s Empire, Oxford, 2008, pp. 212–213.

  58. 58.

    Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, pp. 17, 529.

  59. 59.

    Ibid., p. 383.

  60. 60.

    Ibid., p. 16.

  61. 61.

    The pre-Federation Chinese population in Australia fluctuated between 38,258 in 1861 and 29,627 in 1901 (Choi, Chinese Migration and Settlement, p. 22). Under the Naturalisation Act 1903 persons deemed naturalised in the colonies prior to the passing of the Act were deemed naturalised under Commonwealth law. However, few people were granted naturalisation between 1904 and 1956 (Paul Jones, Chinese-Australian Journeys: Records on Travel, Migration and Settlement, 1860–1975, Canberra, 2005, p. 119).

  62. 62.

    Banana Industry Preservation Act 1921, Queensland; NSW Crown Lands Consolidation Act 1913 and Closer Settlement (Amendment) Act 1916, New South Wales; and South Australia Irrigation and Reclaimed Lands Act 1914, South Australia.

  63. 63.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 318; Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 1, p. 321; and Neville Ritchie, ‘Traces of the past: archaeological insights into the New Zealand Chinese experience in southern New Zealand’, in Manying Ip (ed.), Unfolding History, Evolving Identity: The Chinese in New Zealand, Auckland, 2003, p. 35.

  64. 64.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 318.

  65. 65.

    Ng, Windows on a Chinese Past, Vol. 1, p. 321.

  66. 66.

    This was run by a partnership of six men from Zengcheng (Jung Seng) and had six employees (Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 195).

  67. 67.

    Pawakapan, ‘Chinese in Dunedin’, pp. 37–38; and Stedman, ‘The South Dunedin Flat’, p. 133.

  68. 68.

    Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, pp. 319–324.

  69. 69.

    Ibid., pp. 342, 348, 371.

  70. 70.

    New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Royal Commission of Inquiry as to Food Supplies, p. xxxv.

  71. 71.

    Brisbane Courier, 30 September 1889, p. 7.

  72. 72.

    Brisbane Courier, 6 August 1902, p. 2 and 4 February 1928, p. 13; and George Lee Kim interviewed by Paul McGregor, 17 May 1994, Australia-China Oral History Project, National Library of Australia, Canberra, ORAL TRC 3522/4/4.

  73. 73.

    Cathie May has documented the important role Chinese played in land clearing in North Queensland (Cathie May, Topsawyers: The Chinese in Cairns 1870 to 1920, Townsville, 1984). See also Warwick Frost, ‘Migrants and technological transfer: Chinese farming in Australia, 1850–1920’, Australian Economic History Review, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2002, pp. 113–131.

  74. 74.

    Merrilyn George, Ohakune: Opening to a New World, Wanganui, 1990, p. 218; and Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, pp. 219–221.

  75. 75.

    Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, pp. 219–221; and Nigel Murphy, ‘A history of the horticultural industry’, unpublished ms., 2010, pp. 3, 11.

  76. 76.

    George, Ohakune, pp. 218, 222.

  77. 77.

    Pawakapan, ‘Chinese in Dunedin’, p. 39.

  78. 78.

    Tung Wah News, 19 July 1899, p. 2.

  79. 79.

    New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Royal Commission of Inquiry as to Food Supplies, p. 72.

  80. 80.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 322.

  81. 81.

    Pawakapan, ‘Chinese in Dunedin’, p. 40.

  82. 82.

    Derek Smith, ‘Market gardening at Adelaide’s urban fringe’, Economic Geography, Vol. 42, No. 1, January 1966, p. 19. See also J. W. McCarty, ‘Australian capital cities in the nineteenth century’, Australian Economic History Review, Vol. X, No. 1, March 1970, p. 109; and Lee, ‘Chinese market gardening’, p. 13.

  83. 83.

    For example, Andreas Grotewold, ‘Von Thunen in retrospect’, Economic Geographer, Vol. 35, 1959, pp. 346–355.

  84. 84.

    Smith, ‘Market gardening at Adelaide’, p. 19; and R. G. Golledge, ‘Sydney’s metropolitan fringe: a study in urban-rural relations’, The Australian Geographer, Vol. 7, 1960, pp. 243–255.

  85. 85.

    For example, in the Cooks River area of Sydney. See Ian Tyrrell, ‘Cooks River and environmental history’ adapted from 2004 Botany Bay Forum University of New South Wales, http://iantyrrell.wordpress.com/cooks-river/, accessed 30 October 2012.

  86. 86.

    Sandra Pullman, ‘Along Melbourne’s rivers and creeks’, Australian Garden History, Vol. 12, No. 5, March/April 2001, p. 10.

  87. 87.

    New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Royal Commission as to Food Supplies, p. 73; and Karla Whitmore, ‘Willoughby’s Chinese market gardens’, unpublished ms., courtesy of author, 2004, p. 4.

  88. 88.

    Tung Wah Times, 21 April 1928, p. 7-b.

  89. 89.

    Stedman, ‘The South Dunedin Flat’, p. 137. Despite the forces of suburbanisation and industrialisation, an enclave of Chinese market gardeners remained in the Macandrew Road area of south Dunedin until the late 1930s, when the land was resumed for the building of a government school (ibid., p. 206).

  90. 90.

    Pawakapan, ‘Chinese in Dunedin’, p. 39.

  91. 91.

    Donald Hunt, ‘Market gardening in metropolitan Auckland’, MA Thesis, University of New Zealand, Auckland, 1956, p. 61; and Val Payne, Celebrating Mangere Bridge, Mangere, 2005, p. 27.

  92. 92.

    Lee, ‘Chinese market gardening’, p. 30. See also Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, pp. 341, 402–403.

  93. 93.

    This was still the case in the 1970s. Surveying Chinese market gardeners in Auckland, Lee found that a major factor in the location of their gardens was proximity to the expanding market of Auckland and lower transport costs (Lee, ‘Chinese market gardening’, pp. 9, 12).

  94. 94.

    Murphy, ‘History of the horticultural industry’, pp. 16, 37; and Marnie Haig-Muir and Roy Hay, ‘The economy at war’, in Joan Beaumont (ed.), Australia’s War 1939–1945, St Leonards, 1996, pp. 111–114.

  95. 95.

    W. H. Clarke, ‘The fruit and vegetable industries’, Agricultural Gazette of NSW, December 2, 1904, p. 1204.

  96. 96.

    This dissuaded many early Chinese market gardeners from planting orchards; the trees took too long to grow to maturity and produce a return. See comment in Sydney Morning Herald, 2 March 1865, p. 2.

  97. 97.

    Lee, ‘Chinese market gardening’, pp. 1, 67; Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 14; and Taher, ‘Asians in New Zealand’, p. 186.

  98. 98.

    Rannard, The Forgotten Gardens, pp. 7, 22.

  99. 99.

    Sydney Morning Herald, 2 March 1865, p. 2, from the Melbourne Age, 24 February 1865.

  100. 100.

    Janis Wilton, Golden Threads: The Chinese in Regional New South Wales 1850–1950, Sydney, 2004, p. 27.

  101. 101.

    Evening Post, 25 March 1909, p. 8.

  102. 102.

    Alex Bennett, A Living from an Acre: How to Defeat the Depression, Sydney, 1932, pp. 17–19, 74–75.

  103. 103.

    The prices of potatoes rose from £7 per ton in 1849 to £23 per ton in 1854 and carrots from 1.5 pence to 1 shilling in the same period. Bate, History of Brighton, p. 168.

  104. 104.

    Southern Cross, 22 September 1900, p. 2, quoted in Bate, History of Brighton, p. 357.

  105. 105.

    C. M. Yuan, ‘Chinese in White Australia 1901–1950’, in James Jupp (ed.), The Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, its People and their Origins, Cambridge, England, 2001, p. 306.

  106. 106.

    Mangere Historical Society, Mangere Chronicles, Mangere, 1990, p. 21.

  107. 107.

    Auckland Star, 28 June 1899, p. 6.

  108. 108.

    For example, see Tung Wah News, 13 July 1898, p. 4; 31 August 1898, p. 4; and 17 September 1898, p. 4.

  109. 109.

    Randwick Municipal Council, Randwick: A Social History, Kensington, 1985, p. 159.

  110. 110.

    Brisbane Courier, 3 May 1902, p. 15.

  111. 111.

    Brisbane Courier, 4 February 1928, p. 13.

  112. 112.

    Andrea Gaynor, Harvest of the Suburbs: An Environmental History of Growing Food in Australian Cities, Perth, 2006, pp. 40–41.

  113. 113.

    Enid Ross interviewed by Warwick Eather, 18 and 22 February 1987, New South Wales Bicentennial Oral History Collection, Mitchell Library, MLMSS 5163/Box 02, quoted in Gaynor, Harvest of the Suburbs, p. 41.

  114. 114.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 155.

  115. 115.

    Sturt Recorder, 19 January 1894, p. 2.

  116. 116.

    George Lee Kim interviewed by Paul McGregor, 17 May 1994, National Library of Australia, Oral TRC 3522/4/4, Tape 2.

  117. 117.

    Eddie Quong interviewed by Diana Geise, 1993, National Library of Australia, TRC 3005.

  118. 118.

    Pawakapan, ‘Chinese in Dunedin’ p. 98.

  119. 119.

    Sydney Morning Herald, 30 June 1881, p. 6.

  120. 120.

    Brisbane Courier, 15 July 1890, p. 7.

  121. 121.

    Hawera Normanby Star, 30 September 1907, p. 7; and Poverty Bay Herald, 11 October 1907, p. 6.

  122. 122.

    Fielding Star, 8 May 1908, p. 4.

  123. 123.

    Between 1910 and 1920 Chinese wholesale fruit and vegetable firms virtually monopolised the business in New South Wales and Victoria. Choi, Chinese Migration and Settlement, p. 53.

  124. 124.

    Sedgwick, ‘Politics of survival’, p. 320.

  125. 125.

    Williams, Chinese Settlement, p. 26.

  126. 126.

    Yuan, ‘Chinese in White Australia’, p. 306.

  127. 127.

    Anne Atkinson, ‘Chinese market gardening in the Perth metropolitan region, 1900–1920’, Western Geographer, Vol. 8, 1984, p. 47. See also Yong, New Gold Mountain, p. 36.

  128. 128.

    Sandi Robb, ‘Mar and Mar: a tale of two Chinese gardeners at Winton’, in Kevin Wong Hoy and Kevin Rains (eds.), Rediscovered Past: Valuing Chinese Across the North, North Melbourne, 2012, pp. 36–44; and Kath Mahaffey, Pioneers of the North West Plains, Moree, 1982, p. 34.

  129. 129.

    Ann Thorpe et al., ‘Otaki’s market gardens’, Otaki Historical Society Historical Journal, Vol. 30, 2008, p. 19.

  130. 130.

    They include S.C. Lee and Bing (from 1902) and Wong Sik Hum (from 1913) in Wanganui; Wong Cho Nam in Masterton in the 1930s and 1940s; and King Brothers in Ashburton from 1947 (Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, pp. 100, 139, 205–206).

  131. 131.

    Alexandra and Yea Standard, Gobur, Thornton and Acheron Express, 16 September 1887, p. 50.

  132. 132.

    Williams, Chinese Settlement, p. 44.

  133. 133.

    Pawakapan, ‘Chinese in Dunedin’, p. 26.

  134. 134.

    Golden Threads: The Chinese in Regional New South Wales Database, 1999. Records: S13, Notes, p. 1; S17, Notes, p. 2; and S10, Notes, p. 1. See also Marion Dormer, Dubbo, City on the Plains, 1901–1988, Dubbo, 1988, p. 105; and Marion Dormer and Joan Starr, Settlers on the Marthaguy, Dubbo, 1979, p. 99.

  135. 135.

    Alexandra and Yea Standard, Gobur, Thornton and Acheron Express, 16 September 1887, p. 50.

  136. 136.

    Yong, New Gold Mountain, p. 37. Public markets were built in Auckland in 1906 and Wellington in 1910 (Murphy, ‘History of the horticultural industry’, p. 17). In Australia public markets were established in Sydney in Campbell Street (Belmore Markets, 1869), then the Haymarket (New Belmore Markets, 1890s, Municipal Markets 1909–1914) and in North Melbourne (Victoria Markets, 1878). (Melbourne Wholesale Fruit, Vegetable & Flower Market, ‘History’, http://www.melbournemarkets.com.au/about_history.asp, accessed 12 September 2011; and City of Sydney Council, ‘History of Sydney City Council’, http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdffile/0003/65550/hs_chos_history_of_council_1001.pdf, accessed 12 September 2011). In Perth produce markets were established in 1899 and in 1906 between Roe and James streets (Atkinson, ‘Chinese market gardening’ p. 480).

  137. 137.

    Williams, Chinese Settlement, pp. 44, 17.

  138. 138.

    Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 43.

  139. 139.

    NSW Legislative Assembly, Report of the Royal Commission into Alleged Chinese Gambling, p. 418.

  140. 140.

    NSW Legislative Assembly, Royal Commission of Inquiry as to Food Supplies, p. 1.

  141. 141.

    James Ng, pers. comm., November 2011. See also Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 41.

  142. 142.

    Walker and Roberts, Scarcity to Surfeit, p. 137.

  143. 143.

    Argus, 21 February 1946, p. 10.

  144. 144.

    Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, pp. 263, 397, 451.

  145. 145.

    See, for example, William Young interviewed by Lily Lee, 16 November 2006, quoted in Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 193; and Allan Fong interviewed by Ruth Lam, 24 September 2007, quoted in Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 501.

  146. 146.

    Jeffery Turner, ‘Fifty years of progress in the fruit and vegetable industry’, Address to the Annual Conference of New Zealand Commercial Chinese Growers Federation, 17 July 1992, quoted in Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 18.

  147. 147.

    Jeffery Turner interviewed by Ruth Lam, 15 May 2008, Lee and Lam, Sons of the Soil, p. 362.

  148. 148.

    For example, the Royal Commission of Inquiry as to Food Supplies and Prices 1913 in New South Wales found that the supply of fresh vegetables was not keeping pace with demand due to the rapid increase in the urban population, the expansion of suburban building areas absorbing land formerly devoted to market gardens and labour shortages due to the almost complete cessation of Chinese migration. The report also highlighted poor road and rail transport facilities, with delays and rough handling causing significant losses to growers and reduction in supplies (NSW Legislative Assembly, Royal Commission of Inquiry as to Food Supplies, pp. xxx, xxxvii).

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Boileau, J. (2017). Small Businessmen on the Land. In: Chinese Market Gardening in Australia and New Zealand. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51871-8_5

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