The rise of merchants
- Home
-
Explore the scroll
- Before the gold rush
- Chinese workers
- Australian gold rush
- Chinese miners
- Anti-Chinese violence
- Lambing flat riots
- A safe haven
- Isolated and homesick
- Rise of merchants
- Market gardens and musicians
- Vendors and cooks
- Laundries and factories
- The general store
- Trouble in the homeland
- Opium
- Revolution in China
- Republican victory
- Healing the sick
- The strength of traditions
- Religion
- Developing the north
- Riverboat trade
- Entrepreneurs
- Politics and racism
- Invasion
- The support effort
- The Second World War
- The war effort
- The People's Republic of China
- Melbourne Olympics
- Colombo Plan
- Multiculturalism
- Professions
- Rising to the top
- Australia's Bicentenary
- Towards the future
- Final inscription
- How to read the scroll
- Creating the scroll
- The people
- Acknowledgements and bibliography
The rise of merchants
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Chinese merchants sold a variety of produce. These Chinese merchants are cultivating bananas and negotiating terms with European traders.
Chinese traders
Not all Chinese immigrants were gold miners. Many of the merchants who had started businesses on the main streets of Sydney and Melbourne during the gold rushes were involved in the expansion of the import and export trade between Australia, Hong Kong, Guangzhou (Canton) and Shanghai.
Chinese traders established lucrative markets for bananas in Sydney, Melbourne and many country towns, and some expanded their enterprises by establishing banana plantations in Fiji. These Chinese merchants were highly regarded by the European community for their excellent business sense and reputation for honesty. Three such merchants were Mei Quong Tart in Sydney, and Lowe Kong Meng and Louis Ah Mouy in Melbourne. Chinese traders dominated the banana market until the First World War. Today, they still retain about 10 per cent of the banana trade.