The Japanese in the Australian pearling industry

The diver and the industry that grew up around him were important elements in the economy of tropical Australia from the late 1860s (when the commercial exploitation of pearl-shell in Australian waters commenced) until the early 1960s when the plastic button finally ousted it from the market. Taking mother-of-pearl, trochus, and trepang as a single industry, the value of its production in Australia in any year from the 1890s onwards was rarely lower than £250 000 and sometimes exceeded £500 000.¹ The industry was an exception to the White Australia policy. Throughout its entire life it depended on coloured immigrants