Literature, Immigration, Diaspora: A Cultural History of the 1905 Aliens Act

“虽然英国在二十世纪初之前曾试图阻止某些类型的人进入该国，但其管制入境的法律一直是断断续续的和临时的。1905年的《外国人法案》是第一部公认的现代法律，旨在根据由公职人员（包括新成立的移民官员）管理和解释的系统官僚标准，永久限制移民进入英国。在这样做的过程中，1905年的法案为今天不断收紧的立法网络开创了先例。这项法律的通过代表着一个历史性的突破，这个国家一直以向难民提供庇护而自豪，并在上个世纪的大部分时间里促进了行动自由。要理解这种变化是如何以及为什么发生的，不仅要研究使这项法律产生的议会舞台，还要研究反移民情绪产生的不同社会和文化环境，以及这些信仰引起的抵制。在这些环境中，最重要的是维多利亚晚期和爱德华七世时期复杂而不断扩大的印刷文化领域。本研究大致按照时间顺序来研究1905年法案，首先是对关键词“外国人”的介绍性分析，“这个词逐渐失去了封建和普通法的含义，成为公民语言的一部分，同时也是一个民族种族主义的绰号，越来越多地与“犹太人”联系在一起。”第一章考察了讨论犹太人和民族认同的试金石，乔治·艾略特的小说《丹尼尔·德隆达》（1876），重点关注英国和东欧犹太人对这部小说的接受程度，并将其主题与入籍法的变化联系起来。在这部小说中，自由国家的形象与帝国主义和犹太复国主义的历史愿景背道而驰，预示着后来关于移民、殖民定居和英国性的辩论。第二章转向伦敦东区作为反外星人政治的熔炉的角色，阅读调查报告和当地小说，以展示文明使命的想法是如何与种族、劳工和政治代表性问题联系在一起的。第三章着眼于将“反犹太主义”这一概念引入日常讲话，识别出几种不同的特征，并将其与反移民的新闻宣传、音乐厅、流行戏剧和小说中的“犹太人”形象以及爱德华时代激进右翼的发展联系起来，移民控制运动的领导人主要来自于他们。在第四章中，对移民经历的描述，特别是约瑟夫·康拉德（Joseph Conrad）作品中的描述，构成了对1902-05年皇家外来移民委员会和议会辩论中部署的论点进行分析的背景。以犹太复国主义替代《外星人法案》的想法也在考虑之中，这吸引了人们对以这一主题为主题的小说和短篇故事的关注。最后一章探讨了1905年法案之后，人们对外星人犯罪行为的道德恐慌，对无政府主义暴力的恐惧，以及对阴谋的焦虑，这些阴谋渗透到对政治腐败的攻击中，通过惊悚小说、入侵叙事和爱德华七世时代的“英国小说状况”折射出的不确定性。简短的后记回顾了自由党实施的非自由主义社会政策的重要性，因为著名的说法是爱德华时代见证了自由主义英格兰的死亡。”

"Although Britain had tried to prevent certain types of persons from entering the country before the early twentieth century, its laws regulating access had been intermittent and ad hoc. The 1905 Aliens Act was the first recognisably modern law that aimed to permanently restrict immigration into Britain according to systematic bureaucratic criteria administered and interpreted by public officials, including the newly created immigration officer. In so doing, the 1905 Act set the precedent for the ever-tightening web of legislation that is in place today. The passing of this law represented a historic break for a nation that had prided itself on offering asylum to refugees and had promoted freedom of movement for much of the previous century. To understand how and why this change occurred, it is necessary to examine not only the parliamentary arena that brought this law into being, but also the different social and cultural milieux from which anti-immigrant sentiments emerged and the resistance such beliefs aroused. Foremost among these milieux was the complex and expanding field of late Victorian and Edwardian print culture. This study follows a broadly chronological approach to the 1905 Act, starting with an introductory analysis of the keyword ""alien,"" a term that gradually lost its feudal and common law meanings and became part of the language of citizenship, as well as a national-racist epithet increasingly associated with ""the Jew."" The first chapter examines a touchstone for discussions of Jewishness and national identity, George Eliot's novel Daniel Deronda (1876), focussing upon its reception among Jews in Britain and Eastern Europe and linking its themes to changes in naturalisation law. Within this novel, images of the liberal state are set against imperial and proto-Zionist visions of history, anticipating later debates about migration, colonial settlement, and Englishness. Chapter Two turns to the role of London's East End as a crucible for anti-alien politics, reading investigative reports alongside local fiction to show how the idea of a civilising mission was tied to questions of ethnicity, labour and political representation. The third chapter looks at the introduction of the idea of ""anti-Semitism"" into everyday speech, identifying several distinct registers and relating these to anti-immigrant press campaigns, the figure of ""the Jew"" in music hall, popular theatre, and fiction, and to the growth of a Radical Right in the Edwardian era, from whose ranks the leaders of the movement for immigration control were largely drawn. In the fourth chapter depictions of the immigrant experience, especially in the work of Joseph Conrad, form the backdrop to an analysis of the arguments deployed in the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration and in Parliamentary Debates from 1902-05. The idea of a Zionist alternative to an Aliens Act is also considered, drawing attention to novels and short stories that take up this theme. The last chapter explores the moral panics around alien criminality that arose in aftermath of the 1905 Act, a fear of anarchist violence and an anxiety about conspiracy that bleeds into an attack on political corruption, uncertainties that are refracted through thrillers, invasion narratives and the Edwardian ""condition of England novel."" A brief afterword reviews the significance of an illiberal social policy administered by the Liberal Party for the celebrated claim that the Edwardian period witnessed the death of Liberal England."