In December 1926 Rewi Alley left New Zealand ‘to go and have a look at the Chinese revolution’. Alley stayed in China for 60 years, becoming one of its best-known and best-loved foreigners.
The Chinese Immigrants Act of 1881 introduced a ‘poll tax’ of £10. Ships arriving in New Zealand could land only one Chinese passenger for each 10 tons of cargo.
Lionel Terry killed Joe Kum Yung to draw attention to his crusade to rid New Zealand of Chinese people. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on the grounds of insanity.
In a climate of widespread hostility towards non-white immigrants, a meeting in Dunedin − presided over by the mayor − unanimously called for a ban on further Chinese migrants
The Finance Act (No. 3) abolished the poll tax introduced in 1881, which was described by Minister of Finance Walter Nash as a 'blot on our legislation'.
Rewi Alley, friend of China, died of heart failure and cerebral thrombosis at his Beijing residence, aged 90. A few weeks earlier, Alley had celebrated his birthday with Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang.
