The Yellow Snake by Edgar Wallace

The activities of the Chinese Trading Federation would have excited no unusual interest had it not been for the labour trouble originating in the employment of yellow stevedores. It was known to be a company financed by wealthy Chinese, and it was not thought remarkable that the promoters of this trading concern should prefer to employ men of their own race; and when the labour difficulty was adjusted and the workers employed by the Federation were accepted as trade unionists, the mutterings against 'Chinese labour' died down, to be revived by the protests of the local inhabitants when a particularly unpleasant outrage was committed in the vicinity of the factory. It was the only one of its kind, happily, for the Federation had taken the drastic step of providing lodgings for its workmen within the factory itself. There was accommodation enough, since the grounds held many buildings of solid concrete. It had been one of the innumerable war factories that had sprung up during the war and which the Armistice had left tenantless, and the Federation had acquired the premises for a fraction of their cost.

The factory stood on the banks of the sluggish Surrey Canal, and had its own small dock and quay, where interminable strings of barges were unloaded and re-loaded from week to week. Only the barges were manned by white labour; the ships that carried the merchandise of the Federation to the African shore were both officered and manned by Chinamen.