Bashford and Gilchrist’s article, ‘The Colonial History of the 1905 Aliens Act’, is a well convincing article that fits into the course theme of government responses. Using large amounts of primary evidence, from legislation, it articulates the point that Britain during the nineteenth century was lagging behind in terms of immigrant restrictions. In comparison to the colonies and further afield such as America, Britain was more liberal with its restrictions. The authors, from this, go onto argue that the Aliens Act of 1905 was modelled off the restrictions of other countries not copied. To do this, Bashford and Gilchrist track the progress of the Aliens Act from the late nineteenth century and the massing agitation to the Royal Commission and finally to the passing of the act in 1905. The authors use a variety of scholarly material from historians such as Colin Holmes to emphasise immigration restriction as a transnational phenomenon and not as a US one.

A large portion of the article is spent detailing the Royal Commission. The authors show that much of the reports produced for the commission were based of legislation in place overseas such as Frederick Mead’s report which presented a proposal based on US laws. In relation, the authors detail the motives of the commission more of a focus on the second motive, to analyse other countries restrictions. For example, the passport control measure which was seen to be effective in Argentina in keeping Jewish immigrants out and deemed by Britain as a ‘satisfactory means of control’. In analysing restrictions, Britain was able to see what worked and what didn’t.

Even though Bashford and Gilchrist detail this process of comparison during the Royal Commission they also emphasises that although restrictions on the continent or America, for example, were similar there were still differences present. For instance, on the continent there was no law defining the class of the arrivals and so it was left up to the police to decide on the immigrant’s status. While in the US, this was placed on the shipping companies who could refuse passage.

Bashford and Gilchrist reference the problem of defining the terms within the act. It was questioned what constituted an ‘undesirable immigrant’. Fredrick Mead’s report in 1902 put forth that undesirables were people who were ‘detrimental to the community’ on the grounds of bad character, disease or offensive habits. Mead turned to the Australian and American restrictions, which prompted criminals as ‘detrimental’. Mead expanded this idea and suggested this had to be further defined by the inclusion of ‘wider categories. The commission agreed that enforcing bad character was problematic but looking to an Australian example found that using convictions since entering the country against the immigrant could be a solution. Clearly, the Royal Commission acknowledged the landing of ‘objectional characters’ (criminals) as something to be prevented and this was influenced by the fact that exclusion of convicted criminals being common in settler- colonial law. But the commission was different, according to the authors, its banishment of criminals derived from continental legal traditions, emphasising an aspect of moulding over copying.