ABSTRACT
During the period 1945 to 1955, spanning the two Labour governments of Clement Attlee of 1945-50 and 1950-1 and the Conservative government of Winston Churchill (taken over by Anthony Eden in 1955), legislative measures to restrict immigration were extensively discussed in Cabinet and in an interdepartmental committee of senior civil servants. The agreement between ministers to proceed with legislation in late 1954 and the drafting of a bill for Cabinet consideration in 1955 represented the high point of the first phase of discussion about the nature and timing of legislation intended to limit the growth of Asian and black communities. Disagreements about the nature of the measures required and their timing, and worries about their international consequences, resulted in a decision to postpone the proposed action in late 1955. But throughout the debates of the decade the undeclared objectives of the practice of immigration policy did not change; the nature and range of administrative methods outlined in the previous two chapters underwent some changes but their intentions were maintained and then extended. Administrative methods remained in favour for so long because they appeared to be broadly effective and, compared to their legislative alternative, they were thought much less likely to provoke political difficulties, either domestic and international.
