CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 87
hundreds were to be seen, and the 1937 census showed Bangkok to have 196,000 Chinese females to 336,000 males. This shortage of female compatriots in the early centuries induced many Chinese to intermarry with the local Malays, Siamese, or Indonesians; and until well into the present century there always seemed a reasonable chance that the overseas Chinese would merge into the local communities. The relaxation of anti-emigration laws and the cheap and easy communications provided by the steam-ships, however, enabled more and more Chinese women to emigrate, and this reversed the previous trend towards assimilation. This factor may have been as important as political developments in increasing tension between the newly independent states of South-east Asia and their Chinese populations.
By the end of the 19th century the combination of enlightened public opinion and official action had mitigated the worst abuses of the continued coolie trade to South America and the West Indies. At the same time economic developments in South-east Asia were greatly increasing the already large demand for Chinese labour in that region. Rubber and tea plantations, tin mines and rice mills, all required labour which the local populations were either unable or unwilling to supply. As a result the centuries-old emigrant trade from south China increased many times over, and it was with this comparatively recent mass emigrant trade that the China coast steamship companies were most concerned. This became one of the most profitable sections of the China coast trade.
The domestic deck passenger trade had been important from the earliest days of foreign shipping on the China coast. The opium clippers had only carried European passengers, mail, and specie, in addition to opium; but all other foreign ships on the coast looked on deck passengers as a very important source of revenue. In a country so ill-equipped with roads as 19th century China, shipping played an indispensable role in passenger transport. In 1849, for instance, when the Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao Steam Packet Company was formed and commenced a regular service between the three ports, the cost of a deck passage between any two of these ports was one dollar. The speed, regularity, and safety of the foreign steamships soon enabled them to capture the cream of the deck passenger trade from the junks.