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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Australia and canada ? both countries built on successive waves of immi grants ? offer a useful point of comparison for exploring critical themes regarding the complex interplay among immigration, male and female immigrant workers, and the labour movements of receiving societies. Despite the huge distances separating the two countries, there are plenty of similarities. As nations with vast territories, impressive natural resources, and small populations, national develop ment in each country has been critically affected by successive migration streams. Immigration has profoundly affected the workforces and labour movements of each nation. Historically, both countries have had similar economies.1 They have inherited British political and legal institutions, although the French fact in Canada, particularly Qu?bec, has made for some important differences. They share, too, a history of paradox ? receiving societies with strong anti-immigration traditions,especially regarding non-Anglo-Celtic immigrants. In both countries, the labour movement historically has been a major contributor to such traditions, although, once again, in both contexts, the recent past has witnessed a shift from long-stand ing exclusionary policies regarding "foreign" workers towards a policy of greater incorporation. In neither case, however, has this shift obliterated the persistence of ethnic/gender segmentation in labour markets, especially regarding job ghettos of immigrant women. In the post-World War II era, both Canada (1962) and Australia (1973) largely dismantled their racist immigration policies, and since the 1970s, each has adopted multiculturalism as official policy.

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ON 23 FEBRUARY 1926 some 20 men and women, members of the Discussion Club of the Workers Educational Association (WEA) of Hamilton, Ontario, met together to debate the subject Titles in Canada. Not surprisingly, it proved difficult to get a lively debate going on this topic because the idea of titles found so little favour among the Club's working-class members. The secretary commented wryly, "it would have been nice to have a few titled persons in our class to hear the opposite view." 1 His comment was a criticism of class privilege; yet, it also reflected the enthusiasm of working-class members of the WEA for getting at the truth and fairly considering all sides of an issue. As such, it indicated something of the essence of the WEA in Ontario. Here were working-class people meeting together in their own organization, expressing and perhaps reinforcing their class consciousness, but determined to see a subject from all perspectives. The working-class leaders of the WEA throughout the organization's history in Ontario had always insisted on an unbiased search for truth. To this end, they relied on university faculty to direct this quest, even while attacking the university itself for class bias. This paper will trace the history of the Workers Educational Association in Ontario from its founding in 1918 until its disintegration in the 1950s. 2 Little scholarly attention has been paid to this voluntary association whose 1 Minute Book and Journal of the Discussion Club of the Workers Educational Association of Hamilton, 23 February 1926, Records of the Workers Educational Association (henceforth: WEA). Series B I, Drummond Wren's Numerical Files (henceforth: Wren Files), box 2 (Ontario Archives) (henceforth: OA). 2 Although the WEA in Ontario began to disintegrate in the 1950s, it continues to function in 1982 as a small Toronto-based organization.